


Home and Family

by TheNarator



Series: What Did You Think Was Going To Happen? [2]
Category: The Flash (TV 2014), Young Justice (Cartoon)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Dante has something to say about that, Dick really wants to adopt Cisco, Families of Choice, Family, Fluff, Gen, Protective Older Brothers, is brotherly pining a thing?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-17
Updated: 2017-07-14
Packaged: 2018-11-01 16:30:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 23,720
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10925670
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheNarator/pseuds/TheNarator
Summary: Cisco is settling in well with the team, but everyone has a family and Cisco is no exception. When Dante shows up back in his life Cisco is forced to confront his past. Is he ready to go home, after everything that's happened?





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> welcome to the sequel! another story born of me and hedgi talking too much. if you like it go thank her for being my sounding board and also for writing some of the dialogue.

“Come on!” called Bart’s laughing voice ahead of him as Cisco ran.

Cisco tried to call for him to slow down, but Bart had already disappeared farther down the rough stone tunnel. Chest heaving and trying not to concentrate on the stitch in his side, Cisco ran after him.

“Wait up!” Jaime called, also ahead of him but not so far. His wings were out, barely able to fit in the confined space, and he was flying at a little closer to Bart’s speed. “Not all of us have superspeed you know!”

“Time’s a wastin’!” Bart called back, and Cisco could _hear_ his bright, excited smile. “We gotta get to the central chamber to meet up with the others!”

Not for the first time Cisco found himself regretting how close he’d grown with the team’s youngest speedster. His close relationship with both Bart and Jaime meant that the three of them were usually assigned to a squad together, and this mission was no exception. They worked well as a team, Cisco had to admit, but everything always seemed to turn into a race when Bart was around.

Nightwing had pitched it as a simple intelligence gathering mission. Infiltrate the enemy compound, recon the operation, then report back. What they hadn’t expected to find was more than a hundred captive kids and teenagers, enough medical equipment to do experiments on all of them and a small army of goons to protect it all. Beta squad was currently destroying the equipment while Alpha herded the captives to the largest chamber in the underground compound, but Cisco’s portaling abilities would be needed to get everyone to safety. It was too short a jump to waste the energy portaling to the chamber when he could get there the old fashioned way, so Cisco was stuck lagging behind the others as they all ran.

“Seriously, slow down,” called Jaime from up ahead. “We can’t do anything without Vibe anyway!”

“Then carry him!” Bart shouted back.

“No . . . way . . .” Cisco puffed.

Jaime didn’t dignify it with a response, although Cisco thought he might have heard him whisper something to the scarab about “being a decent human being, alien or not.”

“Pick up the pace!” came Bart’s voice again. “We’re almost to the-”

Bart’s voice stopped suddenly, making both Jaime and Cisco pause. They looked at each other, then summoned up whatever speed they had left. If Bart had gotten himself into trouble by running ahead, Cisco was going to make him regret it.

A few twists in the tunnel later they found Bart, thankfully alright but plastered to the wall of the tunnel next to another sharp bend. Jaime landed and Cisco stumbled to a stop, panting.

“What’s wrong?” Cisco demanded, but Bart immediately put a finger to his lips and shushed Cisco forcefully. Cisco gave Bart a quizzical look, and Bart indicated the corner around which they were sheltering.

Cisco and Jaime poked their heads carefully out, then quickly pulled them back.

“Wow,” Cisco said.

“ _See_?” Bart asked.

“Yeah we see,” Jaime replied waspishly. “There must be a hundred guys out there. How do we get through?”

“We’ll have to fight our way through,” Bart declared vehemently. “Blue, you take the thirty three on the right, and I’ll-”

“The two of you stay here,” said Cisco firmly.

“What?” said Jaime. “No, we’re all gonna-”

“Stay here,” Cisco repeated, giving his best leaderly stare. Nightwing had after all placed him in charge. “Stay behind the wall and wait for me to call for you.”

“But-” Bart began, but Cisco was already making his way around the corner.

The challenge then became how to get into the center of the room without being stopped. Luckily, Cisco had a plan for that.

“Excuse me,” he said casually, pushing his way between two guards. They parted easily, mouths agape.

Immediately all eyes were on him as he began to elbow his way through the crowd. “Pardon me,” he said, over and over as the stunned soldiers continued to allow him through. “Sorry, can I just get through here?”

He was almost the middle of the assembled soldiers when one of them was suddenly recalled to himself and raised his gun, stopping Cisco’s advance.

“Who the hell are you?” he demanded, poking Cisco in the chest with the barrel of his gun.

“I’m Vibe,” said Cisco placidly. “Maybe you’ve heard of me?”

With that Cisco summoned up his power and fired a blast, not out of his hands but rather radiating outward from his body like a wave. It forced the gun of the soldier who’d been aiming at Cisco up into his own face where the barrel whacked him in the nose, before he himself was lifted clean off his feet and flung backwards against the far wall. Every single soldier was tossed back, some knocking in the walls and some into each other, until each of them was lying unconscious on the floor.

“Clear!” Cisco called over his shoulder.

Jaime and Bart both looked around the corner, staring wide-eyed at the room’s now unconscious occupants. They glanced at each other, then back at Cisco. Cisco turned and, smirking slightly to himself, strode confidently toward the exit at his own pace.

“H-hey Vibe,” called Bart shakily from behind him, “wait up!”

***

Getting over a hundred kids, most of them apparently with dormant metagenes and some with genes that were not so dormant, home to cities all over the country was going to be a complete nightmare.

Still, Dick couldn’t help but be deeply satisfied and proud of the team as they traipsed back through the zeta tube, laughing together and congratulating each other on a job well done. They’d rescued all the captives, destroyed the lab, and no one had gotten hurt. Dick would call that a success any day, and he knew Bruce thought the same.

“Well done, all of you,” said Bruce, as though reading Dick’s thoughts. “It wasn’t how we expected the mission to go, but you did excellent work.”

“Although special mention definitely goes to Vibe,” came La’gaan’s voice rising above the others, “for getting all of our tails out of there!”

Immediately Cisco, who had been talking animatedly to Cindy, ducked his head in embarrassment.

“Definitely,” agreed Virgil, coming up behind Cisco to clap him on the shoulder. “I do _not_ see how we could have gotten out of there without you man.”

“You’d have figured it out,” said Cisco self-consciously. “The bioship-”

“The bioship couldn’t have carried a hundred kids,” M’gann floated down beside him. “If Charmer hadn’t convinced you to join the team two months ago we’d have been in deep water.”

Cindy in turn threw her arms around Cisco’s neck, almost possessively as she shot a glance at M’gann. “Face it babe,” she kissed Cisco’s cheek, “you’re the man of the hour.”

Cisco looked at Bruce as though for help. Bruce merely chose to smile slightly and nod approvingly, but this seemed to soothe Cisco somehow. He relaxed against Cindy and turned back to look at Virgil and La’gaan.

“Thank you,” he said sheepishly, “but I’m glad you both were with me too. I couldn’t have done it by myself.”

“Didn’t say you could,” La’gaan wrestled Cisco away from Cindy with an arm thrown around his neck, then ground the knuckles of his other hand into the top of Cisco’s head.

Cisco laughed, tokenly struggling, but Dick could see he had begun to enjoy the attention. It had taken him a while to accept praise or even positive feedback from the team or the League, but he was coming around.

“Our newest member seems to be settling in well,” said Kaldur’s voice from close at hand. Dick turned, to see his friend standing beside him, also watching Cisco.

“Yeah,” Dick agreed noncommittally. Cisco had indeed come a long way, but that didn’t mean he didn’t have farther to go.

“You are still worried,” Kaldur noted, without having to look at Dick’s expression.

Dick turned back to Cisco, where M’gann was talking quietly to him as Cindy looked on reproachfully. Conner took M’gann’s arm and tugged her away, and Cindy took the opportunity to insinuate herself into Cisco’s arms.

“He still won’t go back to school,” Dick sighed, “and he hasn’t mentioned his family since agreeing to join the team.”

“He has much to come to terms with,” Kaldur defended. “I believe that he is healing, but it will take time.”

“How much time?” Dick wanted to know. “He’s running out of time if he wants to go back to school like a normal kid. Even Cindy’s agreed to take lessons from Gar’s tutor, but Cisco won’t even try. He has the smarts to skip over the grades he missed, but he needs to act quickly if he wants to get into college on time.”

“Perhaps that is not his wish,” Kaldur speculated.

“It should be,” Dick insisted. “He’ll need a degree if he wants to go into the STEM fields; that’s not something you can just fall into.”

“You have big dreams for him,” Kaldur said, with a tone that Dick couldn’t quite place.

“Well yeah,” Dick said, glancing at Kaldur try and decipher his expression. “He’s smart, and driven, and he has the talent for engineering. He could be successful, he just needs to start working towards it now.”

Kaldur’s lips twitched into a smile, and Dick frowned.

“What?” Dick demanded.

“Have you noticed that when you talk about Cisco you sound like a parent?” Kaldur asked conversationally.

“Like a _mentor_ ,” Dick corrected. “Like how Aquaman sponsored your education.”

“Or how Batman sponsored yours?” Kaldur asked innocently. “That is precisely my point. You have assumed responsibility for him.”

“Are you saying I shouldn’t be responsible for him?” Dick raised an eyebrow. “He has no one else Kaldur. He and Cindy live in the Hall of Justice, like Gar. Gar has M’gann and they have me.”

“I do not think he desires a protector, like M’gann is for Gar,” Kaldur said.

“Yeah well maybe he needs one,” Dick retorted. He felt oddly defensive for some reason, even though Kaldur’s tone wasn’t confrontational.

“Then perhaps instead of encouraging him to go to school, you should be encouraging him to go _home_ ,” Kaldur said gently.

Dick stared at him. He knew that one of Cisco’s issues, one of the things Black Canary was working with him on, was that he wasn’t ready to see his family. When had that become less important than getting him back in school?

Kaldur put a hand on Dick’s shoulder. “Tread carefully, my friend,” he encouraged, then left Dick staring at the empty space where Cisco had been only a few moments ago.

***

When he’d first joined the team, Cisco had fully expected his room to be the only space he was afforded for himself. He was grateful for it -- at ARGUS he’d never had a room, only a bunk, and before then what had passed for his ‘room’ was not worth thinking about -- but he’d known the desk wouldn’t suffice for a workspace if he was going to start building useful devices for the team. He had wondered for a while how he was going to make it work, but on his second week he’d been unexpectedly gifted with a walled-off corner of garage beneath the building, where Sphere lived and all of the vehicles were stored, which had been set up as a small workroom for him.

“I’m allowed to use these?” Cisco had asked wonderingly as he’d eyed the rows of state of the art tools hung on the walls and spread over the two large worktables.

“They’re yours,” Nightwing had told him, grinning in the way that Cisco had come to understand meant he was enjoying something a little _too_ much for it to be entirely seemly.

“You won’t regret this,” Cisco had told him eagerly, “I’ll build you the best weapons you’ve ever-”

“You don’t need to make weapons,” Nightwing had said patiently. “This is your place to practice. Experiment. Hone your craft. Like another kind of training, if you want to look at it that way.”

“You mean I can make whatever I want?” Cisco had blinked at him in disbelief.

“Well I’d prefer it if you didn’t make an atom bomb,” Nightwing had laughed, “but other than that, this space is for you.”

Cisco had at first been a little wary of that freedom, and had started with making weapons anyway. It was only after almost a month of restocking the toolbelts that he’d started to branch out. The anti-telepathy headphones had been for Cindy, after she’d mentioned M’gann giving her the creeps with her powers, but Nightwing had been ecstatic about them and had insisted he make enough for the entire team. When LexCorp had inevitably come out with a metahuman detection device Cisco had started immediately on a countermeasure, which Batman had pulled some strings to get patented by Wayne Enterprises of all things. After that he’d grown more confident, enough to start on a few of his own projects

He had started spending most of his time in the workroom, when he wasn’t on missions or hanging out with Cindy, so for the most part if a member of the team wanted to see him they knew where to find him. He didn’t mind them coming to visit, as long as they didn’t interrupt him while he was doing something delicate, but he couldn’t really understand why Bart had decided to park himself at an empty corner of one of the tables and start doing his homework.

“I’m not bothering you am I?” Bart asked only after he’d been there for about twenty minutes.

Cisco shrugged. “I should probably be keeping an eye on you anyway,” he said noncommittally. “Someone has to, and it can’t always be Jaime’s responsibility.”

“Great!” said Bart, a little too enthusiastically. “Think you can help me with my history homework?”

Cisco sighed as he realized Bart’s reason for coming down to the workroom. “Nice try kid,” he said wearily, going back to the circuitry he’d been working on. “I’ll help you with your science. I know stuff from even farther in the future than you’ve been.”

Out of the corner of his eye Cisco saw Bart shake his head. “I wanna focus on current stuff.”

“Why?” Cisco wanted to know, still not looking up. “You’re from the future, doesn’t the present seem . . . barbaric, by comparison?”

Bart was silent for a moment. Cisco looked up at him, confused, to see him staring at Cisco with an equally dumbfounded expression. “I was a Reach slave,” he said emphatically. “ _That_ was barbaric, not this.” He thumped the cover of his science textbook.

Cisco blinked at him. He’d heard _him_ \-- Thawne, he and Canary had agreed to call him Thawne -- talk up the future so much it was hard to think of it in a negative light. He sometimes forgot that the future he’d heard so much about was _after_ Bart’s alterations to the timeline.

Bart rubbed the back of his neck. “The future might be ok now, but only because of what we do here. Now.”

Cisco looked down. “Yeah, well,” he struggled to recover himself, bending back over the circuitry, “all the more reason to focus on the mission. You’re not going to persuade me that school is a good idea by highlighting the crippling gaps in my _history_ knowledge.”

“You’re allowed to have a life,” Bart said. “Even Batman has a life. Grandpa Barry has a day job and a wife and the twins, and Karen’s getting her degrees, and-”

“And I’m doing this,” Cisco cut him off, indicating his workspace. “This is what I do. When I’m not doing this I have Cindy, who can’t exactly go to college on account of her being from another dimension.”

“Sure she could,” Bart protested, abandoning his homework at last to zip over to Cisco. “They got me fake papers, they could get papers for both of you.”

“What are they gonna do, fake high school records for courses I never completed?” Cisco asked skeptically. The instinctual shiver was still there, but by focusing on the work in front of him he managed to control it. He was getting better at that, with Bart and Wally being around as much as they were.

Bart shrugged. “Sure, if you want.”

“That’s gonna go over well when I take the SATs,” Cisco argued.

“So you’re thinking of taking the SATs!” Bart crowed triumphantly, bouncing on the balls of his feet and shaking Cisco’s arm.

“No,” Cisco snapped, looking up at last, “but you have to, to get into college, and . . . I mean . . .”

Bart laughed at Cisco’s confusion, and Cisco glared.

“Why is this so important to you anyway?” Cisco wondered.

“Keeping an eye on you can’t always be Nightwing’s responsibility,” Bart said cheekily. He zipped back to his seat and grinned. “Sometimes someone else’s gotta pick up the slack.”

“I am not your responsibility,” Cisco said firmly. “You don’t have to take care of me, Bart.”

“Not take care of you,” Bart protested lightly, “just look out for your best interests.”

“And you think it’s in my best interest to go to school?” Cisco asked skeptically. “I’d have thought someone who’s _in_ school wouldn’t be promoting it so much.”

For a moment Bart didn’t say anything. Then he looked down at the papers strewn across his corner of the worktable. “I never thought I’d get the chance to go to school.”

Cisco blinked. “What?”

“It wasn’t exactly an option in the future, ok?” Bart glanced up, then quickly averted his eyes again. “They wanted us to know as little about the way things used to be as possible. So, no more school. I heard about it, but I never thought I’d . . . and then I got here and . . .”

“Bart,” Cisco said quietly, “I’m sorry, I-”

“I mean,” Bart said, a little louder now, some of his usual energy returning, “sure it’s dehumanizing and poorly run and there aren’t enough resources to go around, but you know. Less so than the last place I was.”

“Yeah,” Cisco laughed, more a restless exhale of nerves than anything. “Less so than that.”

“Less so than the last place you were too,” Bart pointed out.

Cisco bit the inside of his cheek. It wasn’t that the idea of school was so horrible, in fact he vaguely remembered liking it, but the very idea seemed so far removed from the person he’d become. He couldn’t be _normal_ anymore, that had stopped being an option years ago. That wasn’t even considering the practical concerns. School records created a paper trail, one that could be followed to his location, and some part of him balked at spending that much time and energy on something that wasn’t _useful_ to the League or the team. It was too big a risk for too little a reward. Not worth it.

Cisco took a deep breath, then let it out. “History’s not hard,” he said. “All you gotta do is look it up in the book.”

Bart looked crestfallen. “Right,” he said. “Easy.”

“But,” Cisco braced himself, “maybe Gar’s tutor can come up with something a little more challenging-”

“You mean it?” Bart cried, perking up immediately.

“Yeah, yeah,” Cisco grumbled. “It’s a waste of time, but if it means I can help with your homework that just gives me another excuse to help keep you out of trouble.”

Bart beamed excitedly, but said nothing more and instead bent over his homework, leaving Cisco to wonder if he was ever going to win a conversation with this kid.

***

Dinah Lance had worked hard to get where she was today. She’d put herself through school to become a licensed psychologist by working two jobs. She’d trained day and night to become the Black Canary. She’d fought tooth and nail to prove herself worthy of the Justice League. And every day she did her utmost to help people in need, using both of her two identities.

Helping Cisco Ramon was a challenge, but not one she was unprepared for. She’d known early on that the team would need Dinah just as much as they needed Canary, but Cisco needed her more than all of them. The boy had problems trusting anyone -- he’d only trusted her with his real name a few weeks ago -- but his trauma was the kind that needed to be talked about. It couldn’t be allowed to fester, as it had been before he came to the team. He needed to talk about it. He needed to open up to someone.

Dinah was certain that she could be that someone, if only she was patient.

They had been meeting like this for several weeks now. Cisco hadn’t originally been enthused about getting therapy, but with a little push from Cindy, the only person he really trusted, he’d agreed to see Dinah just to talk about what was on his mind. Thus far they had talked only a little about the one person she knew was _always_ on his mind, but he’d gotten pretty good about discussing how he was settling in and even some of his experiences with ARGUS. It was a start.

Today though Cisco was being particularly withdrawn. He was staring into space as though deep in thought, and answered all of her gently probing questions noncommittally. He seemed to be far away, or perhaps was pretending to be to avoid engaging with her, so Dinah decided a more direct approach might be in order.

“You’re distracted,” she noted, causing Cisco to look up at her with a little more focus. “Remember, we’re here to talk about what’s on your mind. Care to tell me what you’re thinking about?”

Cisco hesitated, looking down, but then he straightened and returned his attention to her. “Do you think history is useful?”

“I think those who don’t learn from history are doomed to repeat it,” she replied easily. Cisco frowned at the platitude, so she went on. “History provides perspective on the present. It gives us context for the things that happen around us, and can serve as a warning for what is to come. I think it can be very useful.”

She had learned early on that Cisco had a small obsession with the idea of being useful. He was constantly looking for ways to help the team or the League, and would do whatever favor was asked of him, regardless of its reasonableness. He allowed himself only a small amount of time in which he didn’t need to be working on some project or other, and most of this he devoted to his girlfriend. If he didn’t feel like he was being useful anxiety would set in; the one time she had suggested he take a day all to himself he’d returned to her a nervous wreck, refusing to do it again.

“It just doesn’t seem like a valuable use of time,” Cisco said in response to her explanation. “It feels like a waste.”

“Are you thinking of devoting some time to studying history?” Dinah pressed. One of the things she was trying to work on was encouraging him to engage in age-appropriate activities, such as going back to school. He was old enough to make the decision for himself, but she and some of the others thought that with his intelligence school would be just what he needed to feel like an ordinary person again.

“No,” Cisco said quickly, then, “Maybe. It’s just something I’ve been thinking about.”

“If you want my opinion, I’m all for it,” she told him. “Doing something normal will be good for you.”

“I don’t really do normal very well,” Cisco reminded her. “It’s not really an option for people like you and me.”

“I do normal,” Dinah corrected. “I do it all the time, every day. I have a life, Cisco, and so does everyone else here.”

Cisco looked away, chewing his thumbnail. “It’s just-” he sighed, then started again. “For the last eight years I’ve studied things that were useful. I didn’t waste time with things that weren’t.”

Dinah was careful not to let her expression change, but she felt a surge of excitement. This was new territory, something he hadn’t talked about yet. She picked her next question carefully. “And what did you study, that was useful?”

“Science,” Cisco replied easily. “Math, engineering. Things that let me be helpful.”

“Helpful to who?” Dinah asked.

“To-” Cisco swallowed, “-to whoever I was with. But mostly to him.”

“Him?” she pressed.

“Thawne,” Cisco forced out, with obvious effort. “Things that let me be helpful to Thawne.”

“So he taught you math and science,” she extrapolated.

“Yes,” Cisco said. Then he paused, looking away, and when he continued it seemed like he had to dredge the words from some deep well of strength. “He taught me so that I could help out in his lab. It was one of the ways he . . . made use of me.”

Dinah filed this information away, her view of Cisco and his life up to now rearranging. She had previously assumed that Cisco’s only purpose when he’d been with the Reverse-Flash had been as a weapon. Clearly that was not the case. What else had he been made to do, while he was under a villain’s thumb?

“You know,” Dinah said carefully, “you don’t have to keep using those skills if you don’t want to. What you did for survival and what you do with your life are two different things. If you don’t like math and science-”

“I do,” Cisco cut her off unexpectedly. “I mean, I’ve always liked building stuff.”

“So you enjoyed learning from him?” she asked, trying to keep her tone light and neutral.

“No,” said Cisco defensively. “Why would I have liked it? He’s a monster.”

“You can like a subject without liking your teacher,” she assured him. “There’s no shame in enjoying a piece of your time there. It’s good that you were able to find some joy, some solace, in learning. Why should you hate something on principle when you used to like it?”

Cisco looked away. “It still feels dirty,” he admitted. “Like one of his treats.”

“Treats?” Dinah repeated in confusion. That wasn’t something Cisco had mentioned before.

“Yeah,” Cisco said, still not looking at her. “He used to do . . . little things. Little nice things, when I’d been good. He’d bring me a pastry from a coffee shop, or let me watch the sun set.”

Cisco shifted, folding his arms around himself. Dinah noted that he seemed to be trying to make himself smaller.

“He always seemed to know what I’d like and what would get under my skin. Just like he knew I’d like learning math and science. He always knew.”

Dinah nodded. “I’ve never met him, but from what I’ve heard of Eobard Thawne I’m not surprised.”

“No, you don’t get it,” Cisco returned his gaze to her at last. “He knows everything. He knows how you’ll react to what in perfect detail. Like with the treats. I knew what he was trying to do, but I couldn’t stop it.”

“You were a child,” Dinah reminded him. “He controlled your entire environment. It’s not your fault if he was able to make you do something you didn’t want to do.”

“It’s not what he made me do,” Cisco shook his head. “It’s what he made me feel. Before we moved to the beach house I used to think every day about all the things I’d do when I got out. When the treats started? I thought of it less and less. He shouldn’t have been able to control my thoughts like that. If I was stronger . . .”

He trailed off, and Dinah slotted this new information into place in her mind. The beach house, as Cisco referred to it, was a house in Coast City that Thawne had taken him to when he was thirteen years old, and they’d stayed there until Cisco’s escape at fifteen. Dinah had previously suspected that this place was where Thawne had begun trying to win Cisco’s devotion, and this new information about ‘treats’ only supported her theory. Judging by what Cisco had told her, he thought the same thing.

“As you said,” Dinah began, “he’s a master of manipulation, and you were a child. It wasn’t a matter of you not being strong enough, Cisco. I doubt any of your teammates, or even the League, could have undergone what he did to you at that age and remained in full control.”

“But it shouldn’t have been that simple,” Cisco protested. “I knew, I knew the whole time he was a monster, but I still ate out of his hand when he offered me candy. We had movie nights for god’s sake, how can you do that with someone you know is evil?”

“If you had refused he would have harmed you,” Dinah reminded him. “You were aware of that on some level, even if the threat wasn’t verbalized in all instances. It wasn’t weakness, it was self-preservation. You don’t need to feel guilty for surviving.”

Cisco stared at her a moment, blinking repeatedly. He seemed to be mulling over what she’d said, like it had penetrated his defensive exterior. Dinah waited, watching him closely, but he didn’t look distressed. He was just contemplating.

Finally Cisco pushed his hair out of his face with a sigh. “It just feels hard to sort through it all sometimes. It should be easier. Everything should fall under ‘traumatizing’ and I should hate everything I did. But he knew how to make me feel proud. How to make me feel good about myself. Pleasing him felt good, and his praise . . .” he paused, swallowing. “It made me feel too much. I can’t make sense of it.”

“That’s alright,” Dinah assured him. “You don’t have to make sense of it all right now. Take time. It might take months, years. It’s alright. There’s not one right way to deal with this, and there’s no time limit.”

“How am I supposed to take time while he’s still _there_?” Cisco asked, suddenly agitated. “I shouldn’t be this confused, I need to be ready.”

“Healing isn’t something you can rush,” Dinah said, but he cut her off.

“How can I face him like this?” Cisco demanded. “I feel totally raw, like an exposed nerve.”

“You don’t face him,” Dinah said firmly. “Maybe in a few years, if you feel up to it. But no one expects you to face him right now, or ever again if you don’t want to.”

“And what if he gets out?” Cisco wondered. “What if I don’t have a choice? I need to be prepared for that eventuality.”

Dinah shook her head. “Not right this minute. Focus on healing, not on what ifs. You can ‘if’ yourself to death and it won’t do you any good.”

Cisco closed his eyes a moment, and Dinah could practically _see_ him shutting her out. His defenses rose up around him like a shield, until he was back in that place where she could barely reach him.

“This isn’t an if,” he said after a moment, “it’s a when.”

Dinah paused a moment, wondering how to proceed. At last she settled on a strategy. “Do you remember when we talked about resiliency factors?”

“Yeah,” Cisco nodded indifferently. “They’re things in your past that make trauma easier to deal with.”

Dinah leaned forward, folding her hands in her lap. “I want you to focus on the now. Focus on you, on healing. Worrying about the future is natural, but it prevents you from healing now. It makes that raw nerve, and you can’t face anyone like that.”

Cisco bit his lip as though thinking, his gaze sliding off Dinah to land on the floor. For a moment he looked unguarded, like she had gotten past those ironclad defenses, but then he looked back at her with walls firmly back in place.

Dinah sighed. “Do you want to keep talking about this? We can talk about something else, or end here.”

Cisco glanced at the clock on the wall. “I should talk to Cindy,” he said. “I need to think about this.”

“Alright,” Dinah stood, stretching, and Cisco stood also. “Remember, you’re not alone. We’re all here for you.”

“I know,” Cisco said, in the way that meant he was only saying it to be polite.

Dinah smiled, and Cisco returned it before heading for the door. “I mean it,” she said when he had his hand on the knob, “we are here. If you need anything.”

Cisco turned, nodding and smiling indulgently. He was humoring her now, and they both knew it. It would be a dire emergency before Cisco asked for help from the League, but at least he had Cindy that he felt he could talk to, and he was making friends with some other members of the team. It wasn’t a perfect situation, but it was getting there, and that was all she could really ask for.

“Thanks,” Cisco said, and then he disappeared out the door and down the hall toward his own room.

***

He wasn’t entirely sure why, but therapy always made Cisco hungry.

The kitchen was one of the few places Cisco was learning to relax. Food, for the last eight years, had been a reward, something given in exchange for good behavior. Here though, food was always available, and he never had to ask permission or wait on someone else’s schedule. It had taken him a few weeks to figure that out, but once he had the kitchen quickly became a reminder of how different his new residence was from his old ones.

Fixing himself a snack made him feel oddly in control, and it soothed the general sense of overwhelmedness that always came of his sessions with Canary. After this he would go down to the garage and work on the new drone he was building for recon missions. Later tonight he’d talk to Cindy, and-

“How’s it going?” said a familiar voice from behind him.

Cisco jumped, nearly dropping the knife he’d been using to spread mayonnaise on his sandwich. “Wally!” he exclaimed, whirling around to find the speedster emerging from behind the fridge door with a jar of pickles.

Wally opened the jar and pulled out a pickle. “Didn’t mean to startle you,” he said, then bit into his snack.

“You didn’t,” Cisco lied, screwing the lid back on the mayonnaise jar and sidestepping Wally to put it back in the fridge.

“Uh-huh,” Wally didn’t sound convinced. He took another bite of pickle. “You just get done talking to Canary?”

“Yeah,” said Cisco, trying to convey with his tone that he didn’t want to talk about it.

It seemed to do the trick, because Wally didn’t press the subject. “Any big plans for the rest of the day?”

“Working on my new drones,” Cisco said. He sat down at the kitchen table and took a bite of his sandwich. He chewed, swallowed, and went on. “I want to finish today. Cindy and I are gonna have a movie night.”

“You know,” said Wally, after swallowing another bite, “you could go _out_ to a movie, if you wanted.”

Cisco frowned. “Why would I do that?” he asked. “Someone might see us.”

“So?” Wally laughed. “You’re just two kids going to a movie, no one’s going to look twice at you.”

“You never know who’s watching,” Cisco replied.

Wally tilted his head, looking at Cisco with an odd expression. “Who do you think is going to see you, Cisco?”

Cisco opened his mouth to answer, then closed it again. He . . . didn’t properly know who he thought was going to see him. It seemed like such a risk, but he honestly couldn’t have said what he thought was going to happen if something went wrong, or what might go wrong to begin with.

Wally laughed. “Look,” he said, “if you don’t want to go out, that’s your business, but if you and Cindy want to go to a movie or something, I have some old clothes you can borrow.”

“Thanks,” said Cisco, still a little off balance. He wasn’t sure what else to say.

“Let me know,” said Wally, then put the pickles back in the fridge and left Cisco to his sandwich.

Cisco continued to think about what Wally had said all through the afternoon and into the evening. After hours of contemplation he still wasn’t sure what his answer should have been. Thawne already knew where to find Cisco, and ARGUS knew they couldn’t contain him, and would probably have known how to find him also. He had other enemies, sure, but they were nothing he couldn’t handle, and he could bring his suit in case Vibe was needed. The idea of going out and doing something so painfully normal made his stomach roll, but he couldn’t really say why.

“Hey Cindy?” he asked, about five minutes into movie night. They had decided to rewatch _Princess Bride_ for the umpteenth time, because Cindy had had a long day.

“Hmm?” she asked sleepily. Cisco was reclining on the sofa with Cindy draped over him, cuddling into his chest while he played with her hair.

“Do you ever want to go . . . out?” Cisco asked carefully.

“Out where?” she asked without looking at him.

“Out, like on a date,” Cisco clarified.

“We are on a date,” Cindy pointed out patiently.

“No I mean like out-out,” Cisco said. “Like to dinner or a movie.”

“Why?” she sounded confused. “Someone might see us.”

“That’s what I said!” Cisco said vehemently.

“To who?” she asked, and Cisco could practically see her adorable little frown.

“Wally,” Cisco told her. “He thinks we should get out more. Go see a movie in theaters or something.”

“Wally doesn’t have to worry about keeping a low profile,” Cindy replied dismissively.

“I know,” Cisco said, “and I know we do, but it got me thinking.”

“About what?” Cindy finally lifted her head to look at him. Cisco would rather she hadn’t. He liked feeling the weight of her on his chest.

“About _why_ we need to keep a low profile,” Cisco explained. “I mean, what are we afraid of?”

“ARGUS,” Cindy said easily.

“Yeah, that,” Cisco agreed, “but, I mean, why are we scared of them? We beat them. They can’t hurt us, least of all now.”

“Just because we beat them doesn’t mean they won’t come back swinging,” Cindy said seriously. “I know we can take them but that’s no reason to make ourselves targets.”

“Right,” Cisco nodded. “Right, that makes sense.”

Cindy cupped his jaw. “Do _you_ want to go out and do stuff?” she asked worriedly.

“No,” Cisco insisted, “no, I’m fine with how things are. I just wanted to know if _you_ were okay with things.”

“I’m fine with the way things are,” she said, then kissed his nose. “All I need is you.”

Cisco knew he was grinning dopily, but he couldn’t bring himself to care. “Me too babe,” he pecked at her lips. “You’re all I need.”

Cindy snuggled against his chest again, and Cisco felt himself relax. He had Cindy. He had his workshop. He had plenty of bad guys to fight, plenty of missions to do, and he was having a bigger impact than ever. Everything was as it should be. Nothing had to change.

“Of course,” Cindy piped up, drawing Cisco’s attention back to her, “there are _some_ things worth going out for.”

“Like?” Cisco prompted.

“Like missions,” Cindy said quickly.

“Well obviously missions,” Cisco agreed, “but what else?”

“Other things,” Cindy hedged. “Important things.”

“What kind of important things?” Cisco asked, confused. Cindy wasn’t making a lot of sense.

“Well,” she began, “what kind of things would you think are important enough to go out for? Besides missions or someone being in danger.”

Cisco thought for a moment. “If it was really important to you that we go out I would do it.”

Cindy sighed. “It’s a wonder you aren’t dead yet.”

“See, this is why I need you,” Cisco informed her. “You tell me all the stuff I’m too stupid to get.”

“You’re not stupid,” Cindy angled her face up and kissed his chin. “You’re just such a _boy._ ”

“Sorry?” Cisco tried, and Cindy laughed, but she refused to talk any more about going out in public that evening.

***

It just had to be a giant robot.

With Superman away on League business it had fallen to the team to investigate a possible threat in Metropolis. No one had taken it very seriously, so Nightwing had sent Cisco, Jaime and Bart to do the legwork. Unfortunately the threat had turned out to be Toyman, not so intimidating in himself, but the giant toy soldier currently attempting to rip the roof off a bank was definitely a little more than any of them had been expecting.

Jaime, who had been high in the air attempting to attack from above, sank back down towards the ground.

“It’s no good,” he panted, “he’s gotten rid of the vulnerability to a sonic attack. I can’t destroy it.”

“Maybe I can lift it up with a wind tunnel?” Bart suggested.

“Not even you can generate that much wind,” Cisco said, eyeing the robot dubiously. “I’ll give it a shot.”

“Didn’t you hear me?” Jaime asked. “It’s not vulnerable to sonic attack.”

“No offense,” Cisco replied with a weary smile, “but I think my attacks pack a slightly bigger punch.”

Jaime and Bart looked at each other, then back at Cisco. They nodded.

Cisco positioned himself underneath the robot while Jaime and Bart started clearing out civilians. He held out his hands and fired upward at an angle, careful not to put himself in the path of any falling debris. He could deflect it, but he prefered not to. At first nothing happened, and Cisco wondered for a moment if Jaime had been right, but then he heard the metal joints of the robot begin to shriek in protest. After a few more seconds huge chunks began to fall away, until Toyman’s robot was coming apart at the seams.

As Jaime flew up to collect Toyman from inside the head Cisco dropped his hands, panting hard. Whatever Toyman had used to make his robot vibration resistant had been no joke, and he’s used more power than he’d meant to. His whole body felt like it was vibrating, which wasn’t a good sign. He needed to go somewhere to cool off, and-

“Vibe!” called a voice from behind him, interrupting his thoughts.

Cisco turned, trying to place where he’d heard that voice before, when suddenly _Cat Grant_ was right next to him, clutching a microphone and grinning excitedly while her cameraman pointed at Cisco.

“Vibe,” she repeated, “that was spectacular! Do you have time for-”

“No comment,” Cisco shook his head, backing away from the camera.

“It’ll just be a few questions,” Cat assured him. For each of his steps back she took an answering step forward.

“No comment!” Cisco repeated, then turned around. Trying desperately to forget the fact that he was on camera he summoned up his concentration and opened a portal. Ignoring Cat’s increasingly frantic questions Cisco leaped through and, without waiting for Bart and Jaime, closed the portal behind himself.

***

_Somewhere in Central City, a teacup dropped._

_The man who’d been holding it stared at his television screen, trying to process what he’d just seen. It couldn’t be. It couldn’t be, but it was, and he dove for the remote to rewind the news broadcast._

_“No comment!” snapped the superhero on the screen as Cat Grant waved a microphone in his face._

_The man stared, then rewound it again, and again, until finally he set down the remote and went for his laptop. The clip was already on YouTube, under the title ‘Vibe blows off Cat Grant’, and the man watched it over and over until the audio stopped sounding like words._

_“No comment!” repeated the superhero over and over, and the man paused the video on the clear shot of his face._

_His hair was longer and his eyes were obscured by an odd-looking pair of sunglasses, but his face was unmistakable._

_It was Cisco._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> if you love me leave a comment, then go back and leave a comment on the last chapter of "safe and warm." please, i need that sweet sweet Validation.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hedgiwithapen is the backbone of this fic and if you see a line you really, really like in this chapter she probably wrote it.

It might have seemed somewhat redundant, but the Hall of Justice did in fact have a security team.

Superheroes who spent their time defending the planet didn’t always have the time to defend their home base, especially when their base wasn’t actually their base but was in fact a tourist trap covering for their base. Nevertheless there were disturbances, like in any other place where the public was free to roam in and out, and someone had to deal with them. Thus, the security team. Despite them though Dick still had the system rigged to notify him whenever there was a security alert, so when a window popped open on his screen showing the main floor of the Hall of Justice he gladly put aside the headache of a report he was working on to see if he could help with the disturbance.

The disturbance in this case seemed to be some crazy guy with a piece of paper. Upon closer inspection it appeared to be a photograph, which he was waving in other people’s faces and repeating the same question over and over.

“Have you seen my brother?” he asked one person after another. “Have you seen my brother? Have you seen-”

He was interrupted by a guard taking him gently by the arm. The crazy guy began to protest, but he was being dragged steadily toward the door. It seemed security had it under control, but just out of curiosity Dick zoomed in on the photograph. It took a moment for the resolution to adjust, but when it did Dick’s eyes went wide.

That was a picture of Cisco. Without his shades.

Dick was out of his chair and sprinting for the zeta tube before the man had finished his next protest. Hoping that security wouldn’t make it to the door before he did Dick bolted through the library and out towards the main floor. The crowd was interested to see Nightwing, but he made his way through the with such purpose that they parted easily before him, and he reached the guard and the struggling man before they reached the door.

“I’ll take it from here,” Dick said, putting a hand on the guard’s arm.

The guard looked dubiously between Dick and the man he’d been holding, but released his grip nevertheless.

“You’re coming with me,” Dick said, placing his hand on the man’s arm and tugging him in the opposite direction.

“Where?” the man asked suspiciously.

“The library,” Dick answered simply. “You’re going to tell me about that photograph.”

The library had a window high up on the wall where people could look in on the superheroes below, but thankfully it was possible to shutter the window closed. Dick ignored the groans audible from above as he closed the shutters and the library doors behind himself, so that he and his guest had some privacy.

The man kept his eyes on Dick, frowning warily. The photo in his hand was crinkled, like he’d been looking at it a lot, and he clutched it tight as Dick approached.

“Who are you?” Dick wanted to know. “And where did you get that picture?”

“Name’s Dante,” said the man, then raised his chin as though in defiance. “And the picture is of my brother, Cisco. Maybe you’ve heard of him. He goes by Vibe these days.”

Dick froze. Was it true? Could this man really be Cisco’s brother? Dick had to admit there was a certain resemblance around the eyes. He knew Cisco’s real name, and had a picture that was definitely him. But Cisco hadn’t been to see his family, or even contacted them; Dick would know if he had. How could Dante possibly know he was here?

“Vibe’s not in contact with his family,” Dick said, deciding that it was worth it to reveal that. “If you are his brother, what are you doing here?”

“I came to get him back,” said Dante staunchly. “He’s been missing for eight years, but I saw him on the new the other day. I know it was him, so let me see him.”

“How can you be sure it was him?” Dick asked. “It could just be someone who looks like-”

“I know what I saw,” Dante insisted. “I saw my brother. I know he’s here so give him back!”

“Vibe is on a mission right now,” Dick explained. “I can’t contact him because we need to maintain radio silence. Once he gets back he can confirm you story.”

“I’m not going away until I see him,” Dante told him. “You think I made a scene today, tomorrow I’ll be here with a god damn mariachi band-”

“I appreciate what you’re going through,” Dick cut him off, “but yelling about being related to a superhero in a public place is a great way to get yourself killed.”

Dante looked startled. “I . . . I wasn’t thinking about that.”

“I’ve never heard Vibe mention he had a brother,” Dick said skeptically, and he felt an odd pang of hurt as he said it. At the end of the day, he really didn’t know much about Cisco’s past. That stung, all of a sudden, and he wasn’t sure why.

“Well he does,” Dante informed him. “He has a brother, and a mom, both of which miss him and neither of which is going to give up on seeing him again.”

“Then you won’t mind waiting here until he gets back,” Dick challenged.

Dante looked around, then walked briskly to an old leather armchair. He threw himself into it, slouching, and crossed his arms over his chest.

Dick sighed. This was shaping up to be even more of a headache than the report.

***

When Cisco returned from his mission with Bart and Jaime only to be immediately pulled aside by Nightwing, his first reaction was blind fear. A thousand possibilities for what might be wrong spun through his head. Bart and Jaime both threw him concerned looks as Nightwing drew him away to a quiet corner, and by the time they were alone enough for Nightwing’s taste his hands were shaking.

Of all the things he had expected, “Your brother is in the Hall of Justice,” was not one of them.

“What?” Cisco asked, sure he had misheard.

“He saw you on the news,” Nightwing explained. “He brought a picture of you and started waving it around, so I gave him some privacy until you got back.”

“What did you tell him?!” Cisco demanded, grabbing Nightwing by his upper arms, unable to reach his shoulders. “What did you-”

“Nothing,” Nightwing said firmly. “I can have him escorted out. Tell him not to come back, if that’s what you want.”

“He can’t be here,” Cisco shook his head, “he can’t . . .” he trailed off, feeling slightly sick.

“I guess he really is your brother,” Nightwing concluded.

Cisco nodded uncertainly. He wasn’t sure he wanted the team to know about his family, leaving out all the other threats to Dante’s safety from ARGUS and Thawne. His family, Dante, were part of his old life, separate from who is was now. The didn’t belong in the world he inhabited. They should be safe.

Nightwing sighed. “Do you want me to tell him he was wrong?”

Cisco was silent for a moment, paralyzed with indecision. He wanted Dante  _ gone _ , out of this place and out of danger, but at the same time he didn’t want his brother to think he was crazy. Dante didn’t deserve that, after everything.

“I . . . I want to see him,” he said, after a minute. It felt like weakness to admit it, but he had missed Dante, however selfish that was. “But, it’s dangerous.”

“You should talk to him,” Nightwing advised. “Family is . . . important.

Cisco nodded. “Where is he?”

Nightwing had stashed Dante in the library, closing the observation window to give him some privacy. Cisco was grateful for his foresight; he didn’t want a bunch of people seeing Dante and wondering who he was. Nightwing walked Cisco to the door, but Cisco hesitated with his hand on the knob.

“I’ll go,” Nightwing offered. “Call if you need anything.”

Cisco swallowed, then looked up at him earnestly. “What if I’m not what he expects?”

Nightwing looked at him, serious. “Then you still have us, and you’ll both have closure. But between you and me, I think all he expects is that you’re alive.”

Cisco nodded shakily, and Nightwing left him standing in front of the door. Then he took a deep breath and pushed it open.

Dante had been facing away, but he turned when he heard someone enter. His hair was shorter than Cisco remembered, when they’d both been kids and worn their hair long. It made him look more mature, like an actual adult. Cisco could hardly believe that Dante was an adult now.

“Cisco?” he asked, eyes wide as though he’d seen a ghost.

Cisco nodded, slowly, trying to think of what to say, and then Dante was sudden  _ there _ in front of him, grabbing him by the shoulders and putting his face close to Cisco’s examine him carefully.

“You’re alive,” Dante said wonderingly. “You’re, you’re really here!”

Cisco nodded. Dante dropped his hands and backed up a step to look Cisco up and down.

“I . . . I never thought I’d see you again,” Dante went on, still dazed.

“Well,” said Cisco, spreading his hands awkwardly, “here I am.”

“Where have you been?” Dante wanted to know. “Here?”

Cisco shook his head. “No. I . . . this is . . . new.”

“Where were you before?” Dante asked.

“Lots of placed,” Cisco hedged. “We moved around.”

“We?” Dante repeated

“The guy who, who took me,” Cisco said haltingly. “But he’s gone now. He’s been gone for two years.”

“Then why . . .” Dante shook himself, frowning, “why didn’t you come home?”

Cisco looked down. “I was scared.”

“So you just let us worry about you?” Dante demanded incredulously. “We thought you were  _ dead _ Cisco how  _ could _ you?”

Dante reached for him again and Cisco flinched, fully expecting to be struck, but Dante merely pulled him into a bone crushing hug. For a moment Cisco’s hands fluttered uselessly around Dante’s shoulders, afraid to touch, but then Dante squeezed tighter and Cisco let himself cling to his brother. He sniffled, feeling hot tears prickling behind his eyes, but he buried his face in Dante’s jacket and let the fabric soak them up.

“I’m sorry,” Cisco offered in a small voice.

“Don’t be sorry,” Dante said fiercely, and when he pulled back Cisco could see that he was crying too. “Come back home. Mom-”

Cisco shook his head vehemently. He was trembling as he contemplated someone finding out about his family. Thawne or ARGUS or any of his new enemies, there were just too many. He couldn’t risk it.

“I can’t,” he told Dante. “It’s too dangerous.”

Dante stared at him, hurt in his eyes. “Why not? We miss you. We-”

“I  _ can’t _ ,” Cisco repeated, more earnest this time. “I-” he tried to think of a reason, something besides the danger Dante clearly didn’t care about. “I have a life here. I can’t just leave.”

“Not even to visit?” Dante asked, sounding heartbroken. “What am I supposed to tell Mom?”

“What does she think happened to me?” Cisco asked. “Does she believe it was me on the news?”

“She didn’t see,” Dante said. “She doesn’t watch the news much. I didn’t want to tell her in case I was wrong. Again.”

“Then don’t tell her any-” Cisco began, before his brain caught up with his mouth. “Wait, again?”

“I . . . I’ve been looking for you ever since you were taken,” Dante said, softly and looking at Cisco with something like confusion in his eyes. “I never stopped hoping. It hurt Mom too much to hope, I think.”

“Then don’t make her hope for something I can’t give,” Cisco said, even though it hurt like hell. “I can’t go back. My place is here-”

“You’re seventeen!” Dante protested. “You belong at home, with you family! Not risking your life fighting for some shady junior justice league!”

“I can’t go home,” Cisco insisted. “I can’t.”

“So you want me to pretend you’re dead?” Dante challenged. “To tell Mom I’ve given up? Let her pray for your soul at Mass and leave your picture up on the family altar and-”

“I can’t go back!” Cisco shouted. “It’s too dangerous for you to be around me-”

“Do I look like I care?” Dante demanded. “I want my brother back! I’m not just gonna go away, I’ll come back every day and-”

“You’ll get hurt,” Cisco told him. “I have enemies, they’ll find you and they’ll hurt you and-”

“Then  _ come home! _ ” Dante insisted. “Have a secret identity, other people do it! Where are you even living? Here, in the Hall of Justice?”

“Yeah,” Cisco shrugged, a little defensive.

Dante rolled his eyes. “You can’t be a superhero all of the time.”

Cisco winced. “I’m sorry, Dante.”

“Please, at least visit,” Dante begged. “Write. Let me tell Mom-”

“I . . .” Cisco looked away. “Let me think about it, okay? I need . . . some time . . . to-”

“To what?” Dante asked. “Remember that you have a brother?”

“That’s not what I meant,” Cisco said.

“I wasn’t kidding,” Dante informed him. “I’ll come back every day.”

“Please don’t,” Cisco whined. “What if someone takes you seriously? You’re either going to end up tied to a chair in a warehouse or on the G. Gordon Godfrey show.”

“Then make up your mind,” Dante ordered. “I  _ found _ you, I’m not just going to lose track of you all over again.”

Cisco winced. “Dante I  _ can’t _ .”

“I’m not-” Dante began, but Cisco cut him off.

“And you didn’t lose track of me,” he said. “It wasn’t your fault.”

“I was watching you!” Dante sobbed, and fresh tears were now rolling down his face.

“And it’s still not your fault,” Cisco told him gently, blinking back tears of his own. “He was too fast. You couldn’t have . . . You never would have stood a chance.”

“I should have done something,” Dante argued. “I should have . . . for  _ years _ and . . .”

Cisco took a deep breath and came to a decision. “We . . . he kept me hidden. No one knew he had me. He didn’t want them to. You couldn’t have found me, no matter how hard you tried.”

It hurt, telling Dante about that. Somehow telling someone from his old life made it real, real in a way that even living it hadn’t been able to do. Now Thawne hadn’t just made his new friends look on him with pity. He’d made Cisco’s family see him as a victim too.

Dante shook his head. “I failed you.”

“Don’t  _ say _ that!” Cisco shouted. “He’s a  _ supervillain _ , what could you have done? Even if you’d found us he’d have . . . he’d have killed you, just to keep me compliant.”

Dante paled a little. “Cisco,” he whispered, “I’m  _ sorry. _ ”

“I keep saying,” Cisco said, “it’s not your-”

“No,” Dante wiped at his eyes with his sleeve. “I mean . . . Cisco, what you’ve  _ been through _ . . .”

“Oh,” Cisco looked down. He wasn’t sure what to say to that.

“What did he want with you?” Dante asked.

“He wanted me to be his weapon,” Cisco admitted.

Cisco knew Dante didn’t -- couldn’t -- fully understand the implications, but he seemed to appreciate the effect of that statement on Cisco. He stepped forward again, then pulled Cisco into a slightly gentler hug than the previous one.

“If you don’t at least see her, Mom’s gonna march up the steps of the Hall of Justice screaming ‘give me back my son’ at the top of her lungs,” Dante threatened against Cisco’s hair.

Cisco drew back in horror. “That’s not going to end well Dante.”

“Then come see her,” Dante said firmly. “Explain to her-”

“You honestly think it’s better to dangle this over her head and not give it to her?” Cisco asked weakly. “I’m not going home Dante, I can’t. You want me to give her a reunion and then ask her to deal with me never setting foot in her house again?”

“Our house,” Dante corrected, “and why can’t you visit? It can’t be that dangerous. We could find a way.”

“I-” it wasn’t a vibe, but a series of visions flashed through Cisco’s head, every villain he’d ever faced descending on that house, his mother facing down the- “No,” he shook his head to clear it. “Dante you don’t get it-”

“We’re  _ family _ ,” Dante said. “Please, don't push us away.”

Cisco cast around desperately for an idea. “Meet me at a coffee shop. Tomorrow. Please?” he gave a pleading smile. “Just don’t come here. We can talk more then.”

Dante nodded. “But if you aren’t there I’m going to tell Mom you’re alive. Not what you’re doing, just that you’re alive.”

Grimly, Cisco nodded.

***

Dick really couldn’t help being nosy. Once he’d left Cisco he’d gone immediately to the residential wing and pulled up the security feed from the library. Cisco’s reunion with Dante had been . . . dramatic, and Dick watched it play out with an odd sinking feeling in his heart.

He realized then that Kaldur had been right. He had cast himself in the role not of teacher, but of parent in Cisco’s life. But Cisco had parents, and an older brother, none of which seemed interested in giving up their places. Dante had come hundreds of miles to pull a crazy stunt in order to find Cisco. Dick had no right to infringe on that bond.

Still, he had a part in Cisco’s life, and he knew that Cisco was in turmoil right now. He watched as Cisco shepherded Dante out a back entrance, giving him the address of a local coffee shop, then made his way towards the entrance to the residential wing

Dick intercepted him in the hallway. “How’d it go?” he asked, with an air of lighthearted teasing, despite the sense of loss he couldn’t seem to shake.

“He wants me to go home,” Cisco said dully.

“Well why don’t you?” Dick asked. “We’re not keeping you here against your will.”

“It’s not a good idea,” Cisco told him. “If I go they’ll want me to stay.”

“Jaime lives at home,” Dick pointed out.

“And for Gar this is home,” Cisco counters. “It is for me too.”

“Gar’s an orphan,” Dick argued. “His only family is M’gann. You have a family. You have people who missed you. At the very least they deserve a chance to see you again.”

Dick hesitated a moment, wondering how much to say. He wanted, he  _ needed _ Cisco to go see Dante, to go home to his family, but still he wanted to share something of himself. If it would help convince Cisco to go, so much the better.

“I’d do anything to see my mother again,” Dick confessed solemnly. “Don’t throw this away.”

Cisco squirmed. “You’re telling me you’re not the slightest bit worried about them becoming a target?”

“It’s not like you wouldn’t be careful,” Dick said. “There’s always a risk, but we’ll help you minimize it. There are zeta tubes you can take, secure computer links if you want to video chat, all kinds of ways to make sure email doesn’t get intercepted. And . . . you’re family. That makes your family, family. We’ll help you keep them safe.”

“Why are you so determined to be my older brother?” Cisco asked wearily, and Dick’s heart clenched. “In case you hadn’t noticed I’ve already got one.”

“I’ll stop once you start listening to him,” Dick bargained, forcing a smile.

Cisco chewed his lip. “You’d really help?”

Dick nodded. “Go to the coffee shop-”

“I should have known you’d be listening!”

“-then go have dinner with your family. It doesn’t have to be all at once, you can do this one step at a time.”

“It’s . . .” Cisco swallowed. “It’s just hard to imagine going home. After all this time.”

“Take it slow,” Dick advised. “We’re here for you.”

***

Cisco found Dante at the coffee shop the next day, drumming his fingers, tapping his foot and looking around like he suspected he was being followed. He kept glaring at the other patrons suspiciously, like he expected any one of them to be Cisco, or perhaps Batman, in disguise.

As Cisco approached the table Dante got up as though to leave, not noticing him yet, and he cleared his throat to get Dante’s attention. Dante’s head snapped around to look at him, and he sank back down as though his legs were refusing to support him.

“You came,” Dante said wonderingly.

“Said I would,” Cisco reminded him. “Couldn’t have you putting yourself in danger again.”

“Yeah, but I thought maybe you’d find an excuse,” Dante replied.

“Nightwing told me to come,” Cisco admitted. “Guy gives good advice. That’s why he calls the shots.”

Dante nodded a little. “I met him, yesterday. Uh, do you want something? Coffee?”

“Coffee makes me jittery,” his hands were already shaking, “but I wouldn’t turn down a hot chocolate.”

Dante nodded and headed off to the counter while Cisco stayed to hold their table. Cisco watched Dante in line, how he kept glancing back at Cisco as though to make sure he was still there. He returned quickly.

“Not gonna disappear,” Cisco joked as he accepted his drink.

Dante gave him a wan smile. “Sorry, I just . . . It’s been so long.”

They sat there, clutching their drinks in awkward silence. Neither of them knew what to do with each other, and so much hung in the air between them.

“So,” Cisco began, trying to think of something to talk about that wasn’t where he’s been the last 8 years, “are you still playing piano?”

“A little,” Dante said noncommittally. “Not much.”

“Why’d you stop?” Cisco frowned. “You were really good. You-”

“My heart wasn’t in it,” Dante said with a shrug, “not really. I like it better now that there’s no . . . pressure, I guess.”

“Well,” Cisco floundered, “that ‘s good, at least. I mean, I don’t get it, you loved playing in front of crowds, but if you’re happy.”

Dante sipped at his coffee. “I guess,” he repeated. “So, the last two years? You’ve been, uh, doing this?”

“Actually just the last two months or so,” Cisco corrected.

Dante blinked. “I thought you said-”

“It’s been about two years,” Cisco nodded, “yeah. Before I was here I was on my own for a while, and before that I was . . . sort of, working for the government.”

“But . . . you’re a minor,” Dante said, perplexed.

It was Cisco’s turn to blink in confusion. It had been so long since his age even mattered that for a moment he didn’t understand what Dante was getting at. Then he suddenly remembered that ARGUS had been top secret for a reason; most government agencies didn’t employ people under the age of eighteen, among the other dubious practices Waller had engaged in.

When Cisco didn’t reply Dante went on. “The government can’t have legally . . . they didn’t even tell us you were alive . . . I mean, don’t they have to-”

“Um,” Cisco wasn’t sure how to explain. “The rules are kinda different when you have . . . when you're like me.”

“Did they even pay you?” Dante wanted to know.

“They told me I was doing something good,” Cisco said defensively. “Which turned out to be a lie, but-”

“So’s the army, technically, and they pay them,” Dante interrupted, and Cisco was shocked to realize that he actually looked . . . angry.

“I wasn’t thinking about that,” he said, trying to sound placating. “I’m sorry, I just, it was food and a place to sleep and . . .”

He trailed off when Dante’s face began to soften. “I wish you’d been able to come home,” he said. “I hate them for what they did to you.”

“Oh,” Cisco let out a shaky breath, realizing that Dante wasn’t mad at  _ him _ . “I guess I could have gone home, if I’d wanted to. I don’t think they’d have stopped me.”

“You didn’t want to?” Dante asked, sounding hurt.

“I didn’t think it was safe for you,” Cisco explained hurriedly. “ _ He _ had only been locked up a little while. I was still afraid at any moment he’d come for me, and I . . . I wasn’t the same person I was before. I hadn’t been ‘Cisco’ in so long.”

“You’re still my brother,” Dante insisted.

“I’m not the brother you remember,” Cisco argued.

“Does that mean this is . . . it?” Dante asked anxiously. “You’re not coming home.”

Cisco stared down at his cup. “Nightwing says we should start small. Ease into it. Maybe I could come over for dinner one night?”

Dante nodded hurriedly, and Cisco could see that he was blinking back tears. “I’d like that. Does that mean I can tell Mom? Explain?”

“Yeah,” Cisco swallowed, “just don’t let her show up at the Hall of Justice, ok? I don’t want the whole world knowing who my family are.”

“I’ll make sure she knows you said that,” Dante promises. “She’ll be way too busy cooking, anyway.”

Cisco smiled at the image of his mother in the kitchen, humming over a pot or a skillet. “Does she still have all those bottles of hot sauce on the back of the stove?”

Dante laughed. “So. Many.”

Cisco laughed too, which made Dante laugh some more, and for a moment things didn’t seem so painfully awkward. It was nice.

“She’ll be glad to hear you’re . . . ok,” Dante told him.

Cisco wasn’t sure he was ‘ok’ by Dante’s definition, but he’s ok enough for now. Ok enough to have dinner.

“So when are you coming?” Dante asked eagerly. “Do you have to ask for leave? How does that work?” Dante’s expression said he was 100% ready to attempt punching Batman in the face if Cisco couldn’t get time off.

Cisco shook his head hurriedly. “I can come and go as I please,” he explained. “Nightwing’s always been really clear on that. I’ll tell him when I’m going and if he has a mission he’ll get one of the others.”

“How about tonight?” Dante suggested, eyes bright.

Cisco panicked a little inside. “That’s a bit fast,” he said, trying to keep his voice even. “Maybe in a  couple days?”

Dante swallowed, then nodded. “Sunday night?”

Cisco nodded. Three days. That was plenty of time.  _ Plenty of time to back out _ , said some part of his brain, but he knew Nightwing would never allow it. He probably knew about the plan already, and he’d move heaven and earth to make sure Cisco had no excuses.

“Great!” Dante beamed. “It . . . it’s really good you’re coming. After all this time. Sometimes I wondered if the only thing I’d get to find was a body.”

Cico tensed as an old, familiar threat came violently to mind.  _ Do you want me to kill you right now? Beat you bloody and leave you for your poor mother to find? _

Dante seemed to notice Cisco's distress; he winced, then coughed to cover it up. “I’m sorry,” he said hurriedly, “I-”

“I’m ok!” Cisco cut him off. “Really, I’m fine. Just . . . bad memories.”

Dante grimaced. “I’m sorry. I wish I could have . . . it should have been me.”

“Don’t be silly,” Cisco half laughed. “I’m the one with the metagene. You wouldn’t have gotten powers and he’d have killed you for real.”

There was a pause during which Dante eyed him in something like horror. “What if you hadn’t had the . . . what do you mean ‘for real’?”

Cisco frowned, not sure he understood the question. Didn’t everyone know about metagenes, after what happened with the Reach? His access to the world had been carefully controlled by ARGUS at the time, but Jaime had explained it to him.

“The way you activate a metagene,” he explained, still confused. “Your body has to be damaged beyond repair.”

“He  _ killed _ you?” Dante demanded, and his expression was definitely horrified now.

“Well,” Cisco blinked, “yeah. That’s kinda how it’s done.”

Dante clutched at his stomach.

“I didn’t actually die,” Cisco tried to reassure him. “I’m fine.”

“But you could have,” Dante said, and his voice was painful to hear, dead and hollow sounding. “If you didn’t have that gene thing.”

“I guess,” Cisco shrugged, trying to comprehend Dante’s distress. “I think he knew I had it though. He always talked like he knew stuff.”

Dante swallowed. “ _ Dios. _ ”

“What?” Cisco pressed. “What’s wrong?”

“I just . . .” Dante seemed to be searching for the words. “He hurt you. And we never had any idea where you were, or who took you, or what was happening-”

“You couldn’t have though,” Cisco shook his head. “There was nothing you could have done, it wasn’t your-”

“All this time we never even knew,” Dante went on. “We should have done something. If we’d known about the gene we could have contacted the Justice League, sent them a letter or something-”

“But you didn’t know,” Cisco said. “Dante you did everything you could. You  _ kept looking. _ ”

“I should have found you two years ago,” Dante ran a hand through his hair distractedly.

“How were you supposed to do that?” Cisco wondered. “You didn’t even know who took me.”

“I’m your brother, I should have-”

“What?” Cisco demanded. “Developed spontaneous knowledge of metagenes? You’re a piano prodigy Dante, I was the science geek.”

“I should have done something,” Dante insisted.

“You went to the Hall of Justice waving my picture around asking if anyone had seen me,” Cisco laughed. “What more could I ask for?”

Dante blushed. “I was desperate.”

“Yeah, you definitely should not have done that,” Cisco told him. “But it’s nice to know . . . it’s nice to know I was missed.”

“Of  _ course _ you were  _ missed! _ ” Dante exploded. “Did you think we just forgot about you?”

“He . . . he said you would,” said Cisco, honestly.

Dante shook his head. “Never.”

Cisco looked down. “He said-”

“Who the hell was this guy anyway?” Dante wanted to know.

Cisco didn’t answer him. He’d been dreading that question since he’d seen Dante in the library.

“The Reverse Flash,” he said, very softly.

“What did he need a weapon so bad for?” Dante’s hands had a white-knuckled death grip on the table. He must have know that if he clutched at his coffee cup that way it would break.

“Isn’t it obvious?” Cisco asked in a small voice.

Date shook his head. “You were a  _ kid, _ you’re  _ still  _ a kid, what could he possibly-”

“And the Flash wouldn’t hurt a kid,” Cisco explained patiently. “Of course, he was going to wait until I was eighteen, so I guess I wouldn’t really be-”

“Eighteen is still a kid,” Dante said firmly. “It’s, Cisco, it’s still a  _ teenager _ !”

“I know,” said Cisco, even though he didn’t quite know. Such statements were obvious when applied to people like Jaime or Cindy, but he didn’t feel like a kid anymore. He felt like he wasn’t innocent enough to be a kid.

Dante ran a hand through his hair. “You should probably, like, talk to someone about this,” he said. “You know, professionally.”

“I’m . . . sort of already doing that,” Cisco informed him.

“You don’t have a secret identity but you have a therapist?” Dante said, looking nonplussed.

“It’s complicated,” Cisco said, unsure how much Canary wanted him to say about her, “but yeah, kinda.”

“That’s good,” Dante nodded. “That’s really . . . good.”

There was a pause after that, in which Cisco and Dante didn’t look at each other. It stretched into an awkward silence, making Cisco wish he’d never said anything about his time with Thawne. At long last he drained his hot chocolate and looked up at his brother.

“I should get back,” he said, pushing away from the the table.

“Wait!” Dante cried in alarm, making Cisco freeze. “You have to go? Now? You only just got here!”

“I mean,” Cisco debated with himself, “not really? I have things to do, but they’re not urgent.”

“Then stay,” Dante said, and his eyes were wide and pleading. “Just for a little while?”

Cisco took a deep breath, then sat back down. “Ok,” he said. “I’ll stay.”

***

The drive from Central City to Washington DC took sixteen hours. Dante did it the the first time straight through, refusing to stop to eat or sleep, unhindered by hunger or exhaustion in his need to get there as fast as possible. He’d needed to find Cisco as soon as he could, in case something terrible was being done to him, in case he was being hurt or held captive. Even if he wasn’t, eight years was a long time to wait for his family to find him, and Dante refused to waste another minute.

On the trip back though Dante was more careful. Instead of driving like a bat out of hell he drove eight hours one day, then stopped at a hotel before continuing on in the morning. He stopped to eat, though food tasted like sandpaper. He let his white-knuckled death grip on the wheel relax.

He had found Cisco. After eight years of searching he had finally found his brother. Cisco was alive, and he was coming home.

Dante didn’t know how it was possible, but by some miracle his younger brother had been returned to him, and he wasn’t going to waste this chance. He was going to be a good brother this time, protect Cisco like he deserved to be protected. No one was going to take him away ever again, not the Justice League or the Reverse Flash or the Grim Reaper himself. Dante was going to take care of him.

Cisco was clearly going to need a lot of care. He’d been through a lot, from what Dante could tell, and he would need time to recover. Dante was going to have to be there for him, which Dante was perfectly prepared to do. The scars from his captivity were numerous and deep, and Dante wasn’t convinced that his ordeal was over. Cisco seemed to be in pretty deep with the League, no matter what he said about being able to come and go, and Dante didn’t trust them at all. They hadn’t told Cisco’s family he was alive. They were far from innocent.

Dante reached home late on the second day. He dropped his bag, just a few changes of clothes and his toothbrush, by the door, then went in search of his mother. She was in the kitchen, making a welcome home dinner that was, as always, big enough for three people.

“Mijo! How was your trip?” she exclaimed when she saw him, turning off the stove and bustling over to kiss his cheek.

“Pretty good,” he said evasively. He had told her that he was going on a short road trip with a couple of friends, unwilling to get her hopes up in case he was wrong. He’d been sure he was right, but still, he doubted she’d have believed him.

“Did you have fun?” she asked, smiling warmly up at him.

“I did,” he told her honestly. “It was very . . . satisfying.”

“I’m glad,” she said, then turned back to the stove. “Dinner is almost-”

“Mom?” Dante interrupted. “I, uh, have a confession to make.”

“Oh?” she turned around, her expression curious but not accusatory. Whatever she saw on his face made her frown, and she reached out to smooth her thumb over his brow. “Dante, what’s wrong? What is it?”

“I lied to you,” he said, “about where I was going. I didn’t go to Coast City, and I didn’t go with my friends. I went to DC, and I went alone.”

His mother’s frown deepened. “What?” she asked. “Why?”

“Maybe it’s better if you sit down,” Dante said, tugging her gently towards the living room.

She stopped briefly to take the skillet off the burner, then followed after him. He guided her to the sofa and sat her down, then kneeled on the floor in front of her.

“Dante?” she said worriedly. “You’re scaring me. What’s this about?”

Dante hesitated a moment, wondering how to begin his story. “You know how, the other day, I went looking for the aged-up photo of Cisco?”

His mother shook her head. “Dante, mijo, not this again,” she said resignedly.

“Mom, no,” Dante took both her hands in his. “I found him.”

“Dante please,” she said, “I know you  _ think _ -”

“No you don’t get it,” Dante insisted. “I didn’t just  _ see  _ him, I  _ talked _ to him!”

She looked at him, worry in her eyes. “Dante-”

“I’m serious mom,” Dante said earnestly. “It’s real this time, I found him!”

Her eyes grew narrow. “You did?”

Dante grinned, nodding. “I did Mom, I really did. We had coffee, a few days ago, two blocks from the Hall of Justice.”

There was a pause while his mother looked at him warily, then . . . “He’s alive?” she asked in disbelief, putting a hand to her heart.

Dante’s smile got bigger. “I told you he was.”

“Explain, from the start,” she commanded. “Where is he? Why hasn’t he come home?”

Dante took a breath, wondering where to start. “The man who took him . . . had him for six years.”

His mother let out a mournful noise, then shook her head. “But that leaves two years. What . . . why . . .”

“He said some government group recruited him,” Dante shook his head dismissively. “Mom he has, he has powers.”

“Powers?” she repeated.

“Like the Justice League,” he explained. “He can do stuff, I’ll show you the news clip.”

“But why didn’t he come home?” she asked.

“He was scared,” Dante replied, “but he’s alive, and he’s coming back. On Sunday.”

“Why doesn’t he come sooner?” she demanded. “Why didn’t he come back with you? Where is he now?”

“He’s with the Justice League,” Dante said. “He’s joined them, kinda. He’s like, on their JV squad? I asked him to come two nights ago, I’d have flown back if I had to, but he wanted time, or something.”

“I’m going there,” she announced, getting up and reaching for her coat.

Dante leaped up and took her gently by the wrist. “No,” he said firmly, “he made me promise I wouldn’t let you do that.”

“Why?” she asked. “Dante, what’s going on with him? Tell me.”

“He’s scared if people find out who he is, find out who we are, we’ll be targets,” Dante explained. “That’s why he didn’t come home at first. He was afraid the guy who took him would escape from prison and kill us.”

His mother sank back down, then buried her face in her hands. “How did it come to this?” she whispered. “How is my own son afraid to talk to me?”

“Just give him some time Mom,” Dante soothed. “He’s coming back, he is, he just wants to go slow. Be careful.”

She sighed, then pulled Dante into her arms. Dante let her, feeling her kiss his cheek as she held him close. When she allowed him to withdraw she kept a grip on one of his arms.

“How is he?” she asked desperately. “Tell me.”

“He seems,” Dante struggled for a way to describe him that wouldn’t alarm her, “ok. He’s been through a lot, but he’s learned to cope. I think the Junior Justice League has been good for him.”

“My baby,” she shook her head, “my youngest, alive. After all this time.”

Dante looked down. He didn’t want to mar her happiness, but it would be cruel not to warn her. “It’s been a long time for him too, Mom,” he began carefully. “So much has happened, and I don’t know the half of it.”

She nodded her understanding. “Sunday. We’ll talk about it then. Do you think he still likes chicken?”

“I know he still likes hot sauce,” Dante smiled. “We laughed about it, actually, all your little bottles.”

“He remembers?” she asked wonderingly.

“He does,” Dante nodded, smiling.

His mother smiled back, a little watery. “He’s really coming?”

“He’s really coming,” Dante confirmed. “This Sunday. He’ll be here, you’ll see him again, after eight years. This is real.”

She pulled him back in again, and this time she didn’t let him go for several minutes. They sat there, quietly together, both of them breathing deeply. Dante felt wetness on his cheek, and he wasn’t sure if it was her tears or his. He wished, not for the first time, that Cisco was there between them, and he knew his mother was wishing the same.

Abruptly she pulled away and sat up, staring straight ahead in horror. “I have to clean the house.”

“Mom,” Dante sighed, “we have time-”

“ _ I have to clean the house! _ ”

***

As Cisco had expected, Nightwing made sure that come hell or high water Cisco would make it to dinner.

Cisco had found himself with mixed feelings when a mission presented itself on Sunday morning. There was a strong chance of trouble, meaning they needed a heavy hitter, so Cisco was a natural choice to come along, but to everyone’s surprise Nightwing insisted on accompanying them himself as well. He said that he just wanted to get out into the field more, but Cisco had the suspicion that he was there to make sure that they were done by dinner time.

Just as expected, with Nightwing along the mission wrapped itself up before sunset, and Cisco was left with a perfectly reasonable two hours to get ready for dinner. He emerged from the zeta tube lagging behind the others, a heavy weight on his chest and a sinking sense of dread in his stomach.

“Hey Cisco,” Jaime called as Bart zipped ahead toward the living room, “some of us are gonna watch  _ Pacific Rim _ , you game?”

“I’m gonna take a pass this time,” Cisco forced a smile. “Rain check?”

Jaime paused, turning back to Cisco with an anxious frown on his face. “What’s wrong hermano?” he asked worriedly. “You love movies.”

“I’m . . .” Cisco wondered how to phrase it. “I’m having dinner with my family.”

Jaime stared at him a moment, then his face broke out in a bright smile. “That’s great!”

“Feels weird,” Cisco admitted.

“I bet,” Jaime laughed, “but . . . good weird, yeah?”

“I don’t know,” Cisco said, looking down. “We just had to walk miles through a desert to get back to the bioship. I feel like getting to that house is the hardest trip I’ll ever have to take.”

“Do you want someone to go with you?” Jaime offered.

“Charmer’s gonna help me get ready,” Cisco said, “but I think I have to do this by myself. Not even she’s coming.”

“Ok,” Jaime said, “just let us know. We’re here for you.”

“Thanks,” Cisco shot him a nervous smile. “It means a lot, that you’d do that.”

“Anyone would do it,” Jaime said firmly.

“I know,” Cisco said reflexively, but though he’d said it just to sound less damaged before, he found this time that he meant it more than he had in the past. “But it means that . . . well, it means I have somewhere to come back to.”

“Of course,” Jaime nodded.“You  _ always _ have a place.”

“So do you,” Cisco pointed out, “but you still choose to live at home.”

“I love my family,” Jaime told him, “and they . . . they accept me. Accept all of this.”

“I guess we’re about to find out if mine can do the same,” Cisco joked halfheartedly.

“That’s not what you’re really worried about,” Jaime said.

Cisco shrugged. “I . . . I’m not nine years old anymore.”

“You think your parents don’t get that kids grow up?” Jaime laughed. “You have a brother, right?”

“Yeah,” Cisco nodded. “Dante.”

“Presumably they’ve been paying some him some attention for the past 8 years. They know you won’t be the same as before.”

“Yeah,” Cisco said noncommittally “I just . . . I don’t know.”

“You’ve been through a lot,” Jaime continued. “You’ve changed.”

“It’s not  _ that  _ I’ve changed that’s the problem,” Cisco said grimly. “It’s  _ how. _ ”

Jaime winced. “Well I’m sure it’ll go ok. And you can call us for backup.”

“With the way Dante was carrying on the other day it might come to that,” Cisco said dryly.

Jaime laughed a little. “Keep us posted, ok?”

“I’ll be back later tonight,” Cisco told him. “If you’re up late I might see you before I go to bed.”

“Ok,” Jaime said, smiling. “You’ll be fine.”

True to his word, Wally had indeed loaned Cisco a box of clothes. They were a little big, but only a little, and thankfully fifteen year old Wally and seventeen year old Cisco were pretty close in height. Cisco sat on the bed, watching Cindy pick critically through the selection. Apparently teenage Wally had a sense of irony, because Cindy’s first choice when helping him get ready for the coffee shop had been a Flash patterned beanie.

“You can use it to hide your hair,” she’d pointed out. “It makes you look less like Vibe.”

He hadn’t questioned it at the time, but now that he saw the beanie lying innocently on his nightstand he didn’t know how he felt about that. He wasn’t entirely sure who he was, when separated from his supersona. Everything that made up Vibe had been everything that he was for so long. Take that away and who was he?

Before Cindy had finished picking out his clothes he picked up the beanie and tugged it down over his head. Then he got up and went to the mirror. He looked different, without his long hair and his shades. He was still the same, basically, but he found it difficult to recognize himself.

A gentle tug from behind pulled the beanie off backwards, and Cisco turned to find Cindy standing behind him.

“Having second thoughts?” she guessed.

“I just . . .” Cisco struggled for the words. “I’ve been Vibe for so long.”

“Yeah,” Cindy said, a little sadly. Then she smiled and took his hand, drawing him back over to the bed. She had laid out a pair of jeans and two shirts, one long sleeved undershirt and a t-shirt with a print of the galaxy on the front.

Cisco touched the sleeve of the galaxy shirt, looking at it critically. Was this who he was? Did Cindy know?

Cindy pressed herself along his side, wrapping her arms around his waist. “You always struck me as someone who wears his heart on his sleeve,” she said. “Or at least somewhere on his shirt.”

“And my heart is the galaxy?” Cisco asked.

“Your heart is science,” she bumped her forehead against his shoulder. “Knowledge. This universe, and everyone in it.”

“I like a few people from other universes too,” Cisco grinned, turning so that Cindy slid easily into his embrace.

She rested her head on his chest. “You’ve been Vibe for . . . too long,” she said simply. “I think it’s time you tried Cisco on for size. Ok?”

Cisco squeezed her tight, not wanting to let go. “Ok,” he agreed quietly. “I’ll try.”

***

Cisco zetaed over to Central City. He walked the six blocks to his old house slowly, gathering his courage, trying not to panic and run back to the safety of the Hall of Justice. Nightwing would be disappointed, but he wouldn’t be mad.  _ Cindy _ would be mad, but she’d get over it. Dante might come back, but there was only so long he could keep doing that before he had to go do real life things like work and sleep. His mother would . . .

Cisco forced himself to keep walking.

When he reached the door he stopped. A thousand possibilities for what might be waiting for him on the other side, what might happen if he opened it, swam through his mind. He raised his fist to knock, but the door popped open before he touched it. He stood there, hand held out stiffly in front of him, staring at the woman on the threshold. She had more lines on her face than he remembered. She was wearing a familiar red apron, though it was slightly faded now. Her eyes were wide and staring, looking at him in disbelief.

“Cisco,” his mother breathed.

Cisco opened his mouth, but no words came out. He wanted to say ‘Hi’ or ‘Yes it’s me’ or ‘I missed you’ or ‘I love you,’ but his voice wouldn’t work.

“Come in,” she said, holding the door open wide, and already he could see tears in her eyes.

“Mom, please,” he said reflexively, reaching to wipe away her tears. She seemed so much smaller now than she had before.

With a small sob she pulled him into her arms. Her grip was tight, like she was holding on for dear life. His or hers, he wasn’t sure which. He buried his nose in her shirt. It smelled like meat and spices. It was a familiar scent, and though he didn’t remember forgetting it he couldn’t say he remembered it properly until now.

“Oh mijo,” she said, pulling back and smoothing his hair away from his face. “You came back.”

He nodded. “I’m sorry Mom.”

“Don’t be,” she choked. “You didn’t . . . and you’re here now . . . and-”

“Mom, why are you making him stand out on the porch,” Dante said suddenly, appearing behind their mother to usher them both inside. He put a hand on Cisco’s shoulder, squeezing just as tight as her, like he was afraid of letting Cisco get away.

Against his will, Cisco tensed at the grip. He remembered a similar grip, from when he would be presented to Thawne’s allies. Thawne had never let go, held his shoulder or wrist too tight for comfort until they were back at the house. He flinched, rolling his shoulder, and Dante’s hand slid away.  Dante didn’t seem to noticed his slip, until suddenly he winced as he caught sight of Cisco’s expression.

“Sorry,” he whispered.

“I . . . no, it’s ok,” Cisco tried, but their low voices had caught their mother’s attention. She looked between them in distress, then offered a tentative smile.

“I . . . I made your favorite,” she said hopefully.

“Great,” Cisco forced a smile. “It’s been forever since I’ve had anything with real spice to it.”

As though to illustrated his point, his stomach growled. He  _ had _ been traipsing through the desert all day. Not that he was about to tell her that, he had no clue how she’d react to his exploits. He’d decided before arriving that he wouldn’t talk about his work if they didn’t bring it up.

The dining room looked almost the same. His mother had gotten a new table cloth, and there was a new set of chairs, but the things hanging on the walls were the same. The table was set with the good dishes, and all down the middle were steaming plates of food, the pungent smell of spiced chicken filling the room.

Once they were all seated though, no one seemed to know what to say.  _ What are we supposed to say? _ Cisco wondered.  _ Pass the hot sauce and by the way where have you been for eight years? _

“You’re too skinny,” his mother said, piling food onto his plate, which he should have expected would be her ice breaker. For his mother, food fixed everything. “Doesn’t the Justice League feed you?”

Cisco had no doubt that his mother, like Dante, would definitely give a lecture to Batman given half a chance. “I’m not really with the League,” he corrected her hurriedly. “I’m with the team.”

“The Junior Justice League,” Dante explained, sounding vaguely annoyed by their existence.

“Do they not feed you properly?” his mother was not to be dissuaded.

“It’s a lot better than I was eating before,” Cisco said defensively, then realized a second too late how that must have sounded.

His mother, however, simply responded by piling more food onto his plate. “So,” she said, clearly trying to keep her tone light, “do you work closely with the League?”

Cisco swallowed, trying to decided how much was too much to tell her. “Not usually,” he hedged. “Mostly the team does covert ops.”

From the look on his mother’s face that sounded just as dangerous out loud as it had in his head.

“You get enough to eat though?” she pressed. “And you have . . . friends?”

Cisco smiled, remembering Jaime’s words. He’d been thinking of how to bring this up. “I do Mom,” he said. “In fact I, I have a girlfriend.”

She beamed. “What’s her name?”

“Cindy,” Cisco replied. “She helped me get ready tonight. We’ve been together longer than I’ve been with the team, actually.”

“When do we get to meet her?” his mother was smiling mischievously.

“I’ll talk to her about it,” Cisco promised.

“So,” Dante, who had been strangely quiet, chose that moment to chime in, “before the team huh? Does that mean you met on your government job?”

Cisco nodded. “I . . . yes,” he said noncommittally, hoping that Dante wasn’t about to do what Cisco thought he was.

“How did you two get together?” his mother interrupted whatever Dante had been about to ask. She seemed pleased to have found a topic she was comfortable with.

_ I saved her from interdimensional Gitmo and then she kissed me to stop my power shaking me to pieces, _ Cisco thought, but he had the sense not to say it aloud.

“Um. We, uh . . . well,” he cast around for a not-horrible way to describe it. “I mean, she was already there when I was recruited.”

“Was she working there?” his mother asked. “Why did you two decide to leave?”

“She . .  no, not really,” Cisco poked at his plate, not making eye contact.

“Why did you leave then?” she asked again.

“I told you Mom,” Dante interjected before Cisco could start stuttering again, “they weren’t being honest with him. They weren’t paying him or anything, just using him to do their dirty work.”

She frowned. “You’re a minor!”

“I have powers,” Cisco shrugged, “child labor laws don’t exactly apply.”

“That’s nonsense,” she said, “who were they? I’m going to give them a piece of my mind.”

Cisco snorted through his nose at the idea of his mother facing down the Wall. It seemed oddly far away, sitting in the bright, cluttered dining room, so it was more funny than scary.

“They’re a secret organization within the government mom,” Cisco explained. “According to the authorities they don’t exist.”

“They took advantage of you,” she protested.

“It beat where I was before,” Cisco said without thinking, then nearly slapped himself in the face. They were at  _ dinner _ for god’s sake. He promised himself he wouldn’t bring that up.

His mother looked like she was about to cry again, but then a watery smile pasted itself across her face. “Well, you’re home now,” she said brightly, then tucked into her dinner with a little more gusto than she’d been showing before. She, it seemed, was content to talk around the subject, and for that Cisco was grateful.

Dante, on the other hand, seemed to be vibrating with suppressed energy. “So, you said you’d moved around a lot,” he began, “before you got . . . recruited. Where did you go?”

Cisco looked at his plate. “I don’t know, really,” he admitted. “Different places, I guess.”

“You didn’t know what city you were in?” Dante challenged.

“I didn’t get to go outside much.”

Silence fell over the table. Cisco’s face burned, but he looked determinedly at his food. He took a large bite, chewed, and swallowed.

“I know we went to Coast City,” Cisco said, once it became unbearable. “We spent time on the beach.”

He glanced up at his mother, to see her smiling encouragingly. “Remember when we went to the beach as a family?” she recalled. “The summer when you were seven? You didn’t want to leave-”

“What was he doing to you?” Dante interrupted, and when Cisco glanced over at him he was staring at his plate, expression hard, a white-knuckled death grip on his fork, “on the  _ beach _ .”

Cisco reached out his hand along the table toward Dante and tapped the cloth-covered wood to get Dante’s attention. When Dante looked up at him Cisco spoke.

“It was a . . . reward, or something,” he explained, forcing himself to be calm. “I was getting better at using my powers, so he took me to the beach. We would practice, and then watch the sunset.”

Cisco did not go into detail about just how many of those kinds of treats Thawne had started giving him back then, when he was thirteen and just starting to become really useful. A good little lab assistant. A decently challenging chess player. A weapon, under imminent construction.

“All you did was practice?” Dante wanted to know.

“Just practice,” Cisco confirmed.

“Did he . . . hurt you?” asked the quavering voice of his mother, and Cisco looked over at her to see her staring at him with watery eyes.

Cisco didn’t want to tell her, knew that it would hurt her to know, but he couldn’t lie to her either. “Not on the beach,” he said softly.

She reached out over the small table and took his hand, holding it in her wrinkled, calloused fingers. “It doesn’t matter anymore,” she shot a warning glance at Dante. “You’re  _ home _ now. It’s over.”

Cisco gave her a little smile. “He’s locked up. Forever, they said. The te- . . . my team, they promised to help me. If he ever . . .”

“Good,” said Dante savagely, “because if he wasn’t, I’d-”

“What?” Cisco cut him off. “Challenge one of the most dangerous supervillains on the planet? Don’t even joke about that.”

“ _ No one _ hurts my brother,” Dante insisted.

“Mine either!” Cisco said sharply, then forced himself to take a breath. There was no point getting worked up here. “I want you to get the idea of confronting him out of your head, ok?”

“Why should I?” Dante asked petulantly. “He’s locked up right? If I want to look him in the eye-”

“Dante!” said his mother, just as Cisco was about to open his mouth to interject. “Cisco missed you playing Carnegie Hall when you were thirteen! Tell him the story.”

“Mom,” Dante began exasperatedly, but she shook her head.

“Tell him the story,” she repeated, and there was a note of warning in her tone.

Dante sighed, then turned back to Cisco with a dull, defeated look in his eyes. “It wasn’t just me, the whole school band was invited the play.”

As Dante launched into what was clearly an often rehashed story Cisco felt himself relax. This was normal. Embarrassing stories about Dante’s piano prowess were normal. As soon as he was done his mother launched into another, and thus she kept a firm grip on the conversation. Every time Dante tried to steer it back onto Cisco she began chattering loudly about her church group or her garden or a funny thing the neighbor’s cat had done, and even when she went into the kitchen to get dessert she continued her story, calling back through the door to prevent Dante from saying anything.

Cisco was grateful for it, and kept asking as many questions as he could think of. Were her neighbors doing alright? How were his old school friends? Had his old crush Melinda Torres started dating anyone? He was almost pleased to hear that she and Dante had dated for over a year, if only because the subject made Dante too uncomfortable to ask any more awkward questions about Cisco.

In this way they made it the rest of the way through dinner and dessert. It was awkward at first, but it got less so as the went on, until even Dante was laughing at the funny cat story. The tense knot in Cisco’s stomach slowly untwisted, and although he didn’t contribute any funny stories of his own, though he had several about Gar he thought his mother might like, it felt good just to listen to her.

Then, apropos of absolutely nothing, his mother started talking about him again.

“Your old room is exactly how you left it,” she said cheerfully, before taking her last bite of dessert. “I didn’t touch a thing, except to dust.”

“Oh,” said Cisco, not sure how he was supposed to respond to that. He took another bite to mull it over, then said, “thank you.”

His mother beamed. “You probably want to go through it,” she continued. “I couldn’t bear to throw anything away, but I’m sure there’s a lot you’ve grown out of.”

“Um,” Cisco blinked, still struggling to keep up. “I guess you can throw whatever you want away.”

“But there must be some things you want to keep,” she protested. “I mean, we can get you some more grown up decorations obviously, I’m sure you don’t want to sleep in a room with all that kiddie stuff on the walls.”

Cisco’s heart sank. “Sleep?” he repeated. His mother couldn’t think . . . 

“Of course!” she said. “You must be tired-”

“I’m not staying, mom,” Cisco said hurriedly. “I have to get back.”

Suddenly his mother looked crestfallen. “But, but you just got here,” she protested. “You’re just going to leave again?”

“This was just a visit,” Cisco told her, then turned to look at Dante. “Didn’t you explain to her that we were going to take it slow?”

Dante looked suddenly guilty.

“Take what slow?” his mother was looking back and forth between them in mounting distress. “Cisco, mijo, do you have to leave? I could make pancakes in the morning-”

“I’m not staying!” Cisco stood up abruptly from the table, feeling suddenly claustrophobic. He didn’t remember the dining room being this small.

“Cisco sit down!” Dante snapped, shooting a nervous glance at his mother. “We’re going to talk about this.”

“I’m gonna put my plate in the sink,” Cisco announced, then hurriedly gathered his dishes and made for the door to the kitchen.

Once he was out of the dining room breathing became a little easier. With motions he’d never quite forgotten Cisco rinsed off his plate, then put it in the dishwasher. It was easier now that he didn’t need a stool, but harder because he had to keep blinking back tears. Every time he thought about going further into the house than the dining room, about climbing the stairs to the bedroom that had been his own so long ago, his chest felt tight. He leaned against the counter, breathing deeply, trying to steady his nerves.

“What was that about?” asked Dante’s voice from close behind him.

Cisco jumped and spun around, to find Dante practically backing him up against the counter. He gripped the edge of the sink, shying away.

“What do you mean?” Cisco asked nervously.

“Don’t give me that,” Dante said waspishly. “With mom in there! Why won’t you stay? Just for the night, you can go back in the morning-”

“We didn’t talk about staying,” Cisco said firmly. “We talked about dinner.”

“So we’re just supposed to be cool with that?” Dante asked incredulously. “You come back from the dead, come to dinner and then you just check out?”

“What do you want me to do?” Cisco asked. “Go grab my stuff and move back in like nothing’s happened?”

“No,” Dante said defensively, then, “Maybe. Do you have to leave?”

“I can’t just  _ stay _ here, Dante,” Cisco shook his head.

“Why not?” Dante wanted to know.

_ Because I’m not who you think I am, _ Cisco thought.  _ Because I’m not the Cisco you remember, and I can’t be him anymore. _

“Because I can’t,” Cisco said, knowing it would never be enough for Dante.

“Is something keeping you there?” Dante demanded. “Is there a reason you can’t leave?”

“This has nothing to do with what you’re thinking,” Cisco shook his head wearily.

“Then what does it have to do with?” Dante pressed. “Explain it to me.”

Cisco struggled for words, trying to find a way to make dante see, to make him understand. Possibilities chased each other around his head, each of them more ridiculous and melodramatic than the last. At last he sighed, shaking his head again. It was no good.

“I need to get going,” he said, pushing off the sink and swerving around Dante.

“What, that’s it?” Dante called after him. “You’re just going to take off?”

Cisco ignored him, returning to the dining room and making his way around the table to where his mother was still seated.

“Bye mom,” he said, bending to give her a quick hug. “I gotta go, but I’ll see you again soon.”

“Wait!” she said frantically, fingers grabbing at him, but Cisco pulled away from her grasping hands and headed for the door.

“Cisco!” Dante shouted as he pulled on his coat in the front hall, then yanked the door open without looking back. “Cisco, wait-”

The door slammed shut behind him, and Cisco found himself outside in the cool night air. Immediately he began to run, sprinting away from the house as fast as he could go. He kept running even when he didn’t hear the door open again behind him, and didn’t stop until he was two blocks away. There he waited for several minutes, just breathing, trying to clear his mind and focus on the physical sensations like Canary had taught him. The coolness of the breeze. The ground under his feet. The rough wood of the telephone pole he was leaning on.

Eventually he straightened, swallowed, and began to walk back towards the zeta tube. He had left Wally’s hat behind, and he was going to have to deal with that at some point. For the moment, though, he just wanted to be home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> please comment i am begging. tell me your favorite one of hedgi's excellent lines. please.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I LIIIIIIIVE! i have not abandoned this fic! here is the last part! special thanks to hedgi for all her help and support and to all of YOU for being so patient!

As might have been expected from the Flash’s children, the Allen twins were gaining the capacity for locomotion at an alarming rate.

At six months the twins were already crawling, which had made it abundantly clear that superspeed was not a power that emerged with maturity. Already they were leaving little whooshing trails all over the house, crawling up and down walls and, much to their mother’s frustration, reducing any playpen to it’s component parts just by bouncing around inside with enough force. More than once she had apparently been reduced to using weighted down laundry hampers as baby cages until her husband got home, and even those were not without their drawbacks.

All of this, of course, made any normal babysitter impossible. Wally and Bart did what they could, but the twins were crafty and had already become accomplished escape artists before their first birthday. There was very little that could stop them once they got going, that list being limited mostly to their father or a solid wall, and their determination to destroy the house in fits of childish excitement was becoming a problem.

Of course, there was one other babysitter that stood a chance of controlling them, and he was called in every chance Iris Allen could come up with.

“Good even Mrs. Allen!” chorused Cisco and Cindy when Iris opened the door for them.

“Kids,” she admonished, fastening a long dangly earring to one ear, “please call me Iris.”

“Good luck with that,” Cindy said brightly. “He still calls Black Canary, ‘Ms. Canary Ma’am’.”

Cisco elbowed her in the ribs, but Cindy’s smile remained firmly in place.

“None of that talk on the porch,” Iris said, ushering them quickly inside.

No sooner was the door closed than a chorus of cooing giggles went up, and two pastel blurs came racing towards Cisco. The twins had exactly one person to fear in all the world, so naturally he was the person they liked the most.

“Oof,” Cisco huffed as he lifted up one of the babies -- Dawn judging by the bow -- and Cindy lifted the other. “You kids are getting heavy.”

“I think they’re growing faster than normal babies,” Iris said, with a touch of worry in her voice. “I’m taking lots of picture.”

“Good idea,” Cisco nodded staunchly.

The infant in Cisco’s arms began a fast-paced, gyrating wiggle that probably indicated she wanted to be put down. Cisco held tight with one arm, and bringing up the other hand he touched one finger to her nose with a little “Boop!” noise. Behind the light touch he put a little push of his power, and he could feel the precise moment when her speed deserted her.

Dawn didn’t seem to mind; she stopped wiggling and giggled instead, reaching up to tug at Cisco’s hair. “Sco!”

“Deedee!” Don concurred, pulling at Cindy’s curls and watching them spring back into place as he let go. Cisco booped Don’s nose too, and with that the Allen twins were reduced to ordinary babies for the rest of the evening.

“If only it would last,” said Iris wistfully, pushing a piece of Dawn’s soft, fine hair off her forehead.

“I could tap them again before we leave,” Cisco offered. “It probably won’t last through too much of tomorrow, but they might sleep later.”

“I’ll try anything,” Iris told him firmly.

“Are they here already?” Barry asked, zipping into the room with his tie undone. “You kids are early.”

“Actually they’re right on time,” Iris went to peck her husband’s cheek. “You’re being slow getting ready.”

Barry gave her an affronted look, and Iris laughed.

As Iris began fixing his tie for him Barry looked over the top of her head at Cisco and Cindy. “We really appreciate you doing this. We can only ask so much of Wally and Bart has school to worry about and-”

“It’s fine,” Cisco replied, balancing Dawn on one hip as he used his other hand to pull his hair out of her mouth.

“We’re happy to help,” Cindy add, leaning her head slightly towards Don as he tugged insistently.

Barry zipped over to his son. “Leave Cindy’s hair alone,” he admonished, uncurling Don’s little fingers.

“Dada!” Don lost interest in Cindy and instead made grabby hands at his father. Barry took the infant from Cindy and began cooing in a manner that made Cisco wish he had his Flash suit on so Cisco could record this and put it on the internet.

“Barry,” said Iris, taking his arm firmly, “we have to go. We’re going to miss our reservation.”

“Just another minute,” Barry crooned, unwilling to forsake his soothing tone simply to address his wife.

Iris took Don from him and placed the baby back in Cindy’s arms. “We’ll be back before nine. Food is laid out, bed time’s at-”

“Six thirty,” Cisco recited. “We know.”

“Thanks again,” said Iris, taking Barry by the lapel and dragging him toward the door.

“Have a good time,” Cindy called after them.

“Will do,” came Iris’s reply just before the door clicked shut, leaving Cisco and Cindy alone with the twins.

Not that Dawn and Don were such a handful, with two people helping and without their speed. They inhaled whatever food was offered to them without much fussing or spitting up, they didn’t mind at all being changed into pajamas, and they were perfectly content to be sandwiched between Cisco and Cindy to watch Dora the Explorer. At six thirty they were yawning, and allowed themselves to be tucked into their crib with only minimal discontented cooing. Cisco and Cindy harmonized a lullaby -- in Spanish, which Cisco was determined the kids should learn -- and by the time the song was over both babies were asleep.

Cisco and Cindy tiptoed back down to the living room. After turning the TV way down they found a channel playing Star Trek reruns and settled into cuddling and laughing at the physics errors.

“That’s not remotely how antimatter works,” Cisco fought the urge to throw a piece of popcorn at the screen, not wanting to lose any that Iris would have to pick up later.

“That’s not even how antimatter works in my home universe,” Cindy laughed. “And physics are, like, legit different there.”

“Are you sure you don’t just not know enough about physics to realize they’re the same?” Cisco wondered.

“No, trust me,” she said seriously, “they’re different at home.”

“Whatever,” Cisco brushed a hand over her glossy hair. He was reclining on the sofa, his feet dangling carefully over the side, with Cindy lying on top of him again. Cindy liked lying on top of him, and Cisco liked picking pieces of popcorn out of the bowl on the floor and feeding them to her, which Cindy also liked. It was a good system.

“Speaking of home,” Cindy began, looking up at him with big, dark eyes.

Cisco frowned. “No.”

“You didn’t even let me finish,” Cindy pouted. “How do you know what I was going to say?”

“You were going to ask about my dinner with my family,” Cisco speculated. “And I told you, I don’t want to talk about it.”

Cindy sat up, making Cisco let out a discontented little noise. “Not even with me? It’s  _ me _ !”

“I know,” Cisco shifted into a sitting position, leaving the two of them facing each other. “It’s just . . .” he trailed off.

“What could be so bad you couldn’t tell me?” Cindy wondered earnestly.

“It’s not how bad it is,” Cisco tried to explain, “I’d just rather not think about it.”

“Did you panic?” Cindy asked.

“No!”

Cindy raised an eyebrow.

“Maybe.”

Cindy scooted closer and took one of Cisco’s hands in her own. “Tell me. Please?”

Cisco sighed. “They were expecting Cisco.”

“You’re Cisco,” she reminded him.

“No,” Cisco shook his head, “I mean they were expecting the old Cisco. Cisco as completely separate from Vibe.”

“So?” Cindy prompted.

“So I don't know who that Cisco is anymore!” Cisco protested.

Cindy smiled. “Well then I will tell you.”

She brought his hand to her lips and began to kiss the tips of his fingers.

“He is my kind and patient boyfriend.”

Kiss.

“He loves his brother very much.”

Kiss.

“He loves to invent things-”

“That’s Vibe-” Cisco cut her off, waggling the index finger of his other hand in reprimand.

“-and always has,” Cindy went on as though he hadn’t spoken. “He’s protective and loyal, curious and funny, and without him I’d still be a prisoner of Amanda Waller.”

Cisco swallowed, lowering his eyes. “That was definitely Vibe.”

“No,” said Cindy, making him look up. “If it wasn’t for Cisco Vibe would still be working for ARGUS, and a lot of people who didn’t deserve to be in lockup would still be there.”

“A lot of people who  _ did _ deserve to be in lockup would still be there,” Cisco added miserably.

“And to Vibe that would have been more important,” Cindy told him. “But it was Cisco who said ‘no, that isn’t right’. It was  _ you _ , Cisco, that saved me. And it’s you that I love.”

She kissed him. There were all kinds of ways to kiss someone, Cisco had discovered since dating Cindy, and all of them were different. This one was comfortable and reassuring, and like every other kiss from Cindy it was exactly what he needed. When it stopped he pressed his forehead to Cindy’s and they sat like that for a few moments.

“I love you too,” Cisco said quietly.

“I know,” she said, just as quietly. “But your family loves you as well.”

“They love-” Cisco began.

“They love  _ you _ ,” Cindy interrupted, “you the way you’ve always been. Do you know what I would give for a family like that?”

Cisco suddenly felt wretched. “I, I’m sorry, I-”

“Don’t,” she said, “don’t start. Just listen. You didn’t become the way you are because you’re a superhero; you’re a superhero because that’s who you are.”

“You think so?” Cisco asked nervously.

Cindy pecked a kiss to his lips once more. “I know so.”

***

The thing about some of Cisco’s inventions was that they required a lot of electricity. Specifically a little more electricity than Cisco was strictly speaking comfortable with drawing from the Hall. He had considered building his own generator, but it kept falling further and further down the priority list, especially when he had Virgil. His electrical powers had brought several of Cisco’s inventions to life, and his own interest in engineering meant that he was always eager to help.

“So what’s this one do?” Virgil asked, examining the newest device Cisco had presented him with.

“It’s a mechanical eye,” Cisco explained, “capable of tracking any object in motion, no matter how unpredictable its movement pattern.”

“You gonna test it on houseflies?” Virgil asked eagerly.

“That’s the final exam,” Cisco assured him. “Wanna fire it up?”

Instead of answering, Virgil grinned and put his hand on the chrome finish. Sparks surged around his fingertips and into the machine, and the mechanical eye whirred to life.

For the next half an hour or so they amused themselves by throwing a basketball, a tennis ball and a ping-pong ball back and forth across the room at varying speeds. The eye tracked all of them perfectly, even when Virgil put some juice behind his throw and the ping-pong ball when ricocheting off the walls. It flagged once, but Virgil gave it a little more power and it pepped right back up. Then Virgil did a few laps of the room on the collapsible metal hover-disc Cisco had made for him, trying to make his flight pattern as unpredictable as possible. Eventually they decided it was ready for the fly test.

“So,” said Virgil, when Cisco went back to his computer to reprogram the eye for a smaller target, “I heard you went home the other night.”

Cisco paused in his typing. “Word travels fast,” he said, after moment’s hesitation.

“This place is worse than a small town,” Virgil joked.

“Because you would totally know that,” Cisco tried to laugh.

“I also heard it didn’t go well,” Virgil’s voice was gentle with concern.

“Yeah, well,” Cisco finished his programming and straightened. “Parents, right?”

“What about ‘em?” Virgil asked. He had picked up the jar of flies Cisco had caught earlier, and he held it innocently out of Cisco’s reach.

“You know,” Cisco came around the work table slowly, keeping his eyes fixed on the jar. “They don’t understand.”

“No, I don’t really know,” Virgil protested seriously. “My family’s always been understanding of what I do.”

“Good for you,” Cisco made a grab for the jar, but Virgil held it up higher, stepping backwards onto his hover-disc and levitating a few inches off the ground.

“I don’t know what I’d  _ do _ if my folks and my sister weren’t supportive,” Virgil confessed as Cisco jumped vainly for the jar. “I’d probably give up the whole hero thing.”

“You’re saying I should give up being Vibe because my mother doesn’t approve?” Cisco asked.

“I’m saying you shouldn’t let being Vibe get in the way of what’s really important,” Virgil corrected.

“Being Vibe  _ is _ important,” Cisco told him.

“More important than family?” Virgil wondered.

Cisco stopped jumping, and Virgil lowered himself to the ground. He handed over the jar, but instead of releasing the flies Cisco set it on the table, eyes downcast.

“I know you were kept away from home too,” Cisco began nervously.

“Yeah,” Virgil rubbed the back of his neck uneasily. “But, you know, for good reason.”

“No reason is good enough for that,” Cisco snapped, then winced. “Sorry, it’s just . . . it’s not-”

“I get you,” Virgil assured him. “It’s just, I went home first chance I got. I was happy to see my family. I know I wasn’t gone for as long as you, but shouldn’t going home be, like, the endgame here?”

Cisco took a moment to consider his answer. “Ever since getting your powers, and everything that you’ve been through since then, can you honestly say that you’re the same person you were before?”

“No,” said Virgil automatically, “of course not. I’m way different now.”

“Do you ever feel like your parents see you as the person you were before, rather than the person you are now?” Cisco asked.

Virgil shrugged. “I guess,” he admitted, “but that’s just a parent thing. They don’t want to admit that you’re growing up.”

“Yeah, well, the last time my mom saw me I was nine years old,” Cisco told him. “It wasn’t just a few eye-openers ago, it was another lifetime.”

Virgil didn’t look convinced. Cisco sighed, wishing he had the words to explain.

“They still think they need to protect me,” he tried. “What they don’t get is that I’m the one who needs to protect them.”

Virgil frowned, but nodded his understanding. Cisco cleared his throat. “So, houseflies?”

“Houseflies,” Virgil nodded, going for a smile.

Cisco picked up the jar and released the insects inside. He tried his best to get back on track, to go back to the way thing were before they’d started talking about family, but somehow something was irreparably different. The easy companionship was gone, like the way Virgil saw him had changed. Cisco hated it, but somehow he couldn’t bring himself to bring it up.

***

Despite how public certain members had gotten in recent years, the team was still ostensibly for covert ops. They weren’t actually  _ supposed _ to be facing giant robots attacking cities, they were supposed to be investigating things the League were too well-known to investigate. Fires at Cadmus, break-ins at Mercury Labs, these were the kind of things that the sidekicks (or as Cisco prefered to call them ‘hero support’) were meant to be dealing with.

So it was that when there was some kind of lab accident at STAR Labs, Jaime and Cisco were sent to investigate.

“What on Earth happened here?” Jaime asked, landing outside the gaping hole in the wall of the ground floor.

“If I had to hazard a guess, something went  _ boom _ ,” Cisco speculated as he examined the scorched edges of the hole.

Two scientists were inside, apparently attempting to salvage their work off the one undamaged bank of computers. They looked up when Cisco and Jaime entered, but their faces were glum, and they went back to work almost immediately. Closer to the gigantic hole in the wall was the burned-out, half melted remains of what had probably once been a very sophisticated piece of equipment.

“Hi,” Jaime, ever the extrovert, immediately approached the two scientists. “We’re from-”

“We know where you’re from,” said one of them, a younger looking with a blonde moustache.

“Can you tell us about the accident?” Cisco asked, as politely as he could. He knew these two had to be having a hard day. “What happened here?”

“Harry happened,” said the other scientist brusquely, his salt-and-pepper hair swept over a balding head.

Cisco blinked. “Harry?”

“Dr. Wells,” the blonde moustache clarified drearily. “He was working late last night, because obviously he has nothing better to do with his life than work late, and he was using the equipment when it exploded.”

“Is he alright?” Jaime asked in alarm.

“No,” said the scientist flatly.

Jaime and Cisco looked at each other. Then suddenly Jaime twisted, focusing his attention on his back. “Really?” he said, to no one in particular.

“Really,” said the scientist, and there was a slight note of optimism in his voice that Cisco found a little bit creepy.

“No, I mean I just did a scan of the equipment,” Jaime explained. “Sensors say that the safety features were turned  _ off _ during the last test.”

“You think the accident could have been staged?” Cisco wondered.

“No,” said the older scientist, “that’s just Harry for you. He always insisted he didn’t need the safety features.”

Cisco was beginning to understand why Harry being ‘not ok’ was cause for optimism.

As the two scientists went back to their work, Cisco and Jaime retreated to talk in private. “It  _ seems _ cut and dry,” Cisco said, “but I don’t buy it. If this guy routinely worked without a net, what went wrong tonight?”

“My scan didn’t pick up anything else of interest,” Jaime told him, then frowned and shot a glance over his shoulder. “Yes, that’s very helpful. I’ll be sure to tell him that.”

As Jaime continued to argue with the scarab Cisco took another look around. The blast had come from nearly the center of the room, leaving most of the floor covered in scorch marks but the walls relatively untouched. The only thing on the periphery of the room that had fire damage on it was-

“Hey,” Cisco called back to the two scientists. “Where’s that door lead?”

“It’s where we store the material we were experimenting with,” explained the younger one. Cisco eyed it dubiously. It was metal, thick and solid, with a large heavy handle, but the place where the lock should have been seemed to have been damaged.

“What was the material?” Jaime wanted to know.

“I doubt you could pronounce it,” said the older scientist pompously. “We’ve been letting the  _ interns _ refer to it as ‘unobtanium’.”

“Valuable?” Cisco asked.

“We control the only supply in the world,” the statement was delivered with a proud smirk.

Cisco made purposefully for the door, Jaime just behind him.

“Wait!” called the older scientist. “You can’t just-”

While Jaime placed himself between Cisco and the two scientists, Cisco turned the handle and threw the door open. Behind it was a smallish room, the walls lined with shelves. All of them were empty, with only a single overturned cannister spilling a small amount of a vibrant purple liquid onto the floor.

“I don’t suppose you’d just run out did you?” Cisco asked hopefully.

The two scientists immediately abandoned Jaime and Cisco, dashing from the room presumably to alert someone to the theft. Jaime joined Cisco in the storage room.

“What’s the scarab have to say?” Cisco glanced behind Jaime’s back at the beetle-esque device plugged into his spine. He was never really sure whether he should address the scarab directly, and whether that would be appreciated by all involved.

“Pretty unstable substance,” Jaime reported. “Packs a big punch as a fuel source, but has some interesting reactions with metal.”

“Such as?” Cisco wondered.

“It makes it stronger, apparently,” Jaime said. “Like, way stronger.”

“Strong enough to withstand, say, a super strong punch?” Cisco ventured.

“Definitely,” Jaime replied.

“Can you track it?”

Jaime’s arm morphed into one of its many devices, this one similar to his sonic blaster.

“This way.”

***

Cisco couldn’t fly, so he portaled from rooftop to rooftop behind Jaime as they made their way through Central City. It wasn’t the best system, as in order to avoid the usual headache and fainting spell he had to portal to another dimension first, but the pocket dimension that housed the Tower of Fate was a convenient and safe stop-off point that made the process relatively painless. Jaime and the scarab pursued whatever trail they were following relentlessly, and Ciso did his best to keep up.

He couldn’t even bring himself to be surprised when the search ended at an abandoned warehouse.

“It’s coming from in here,” Jaime said when they’d both landed outside the main entrance. “Something’s off though. This is the strongest signature in the city, but it’s not nearly strong enough for the source to be  _ everything _ that was taken.”

“Would it give off the same signature if it had already bonded to metal?” Cisco asked.

Jaime hesitate in the way that meant the scarab was saying something, then shook his head. “No, that would change the chemical composition too much.”

“Then whoever took it has already used it,” Cisco surmised. “We’d better hope they’re still in there.”

The main floor of the warehouse was ominously empty. There were fresh oil spills on the floor, disturbances in the dust that suggested something big had recently been there, but whatever it was had clearly already been moved. Jaime and Cisco gave each other silent worried glances, then headed for the control room.

“Oh God.” said Cisco once they were inside.

Someone had clearly been living in here. There was a cot in one corner, take out containers scattered across every surface and a pile of unwashed laundry next to a minifridge. The desk was spread out with schematics for something large and mechanical. The disturbing thing about the room though, was what covered the walls. Every available inch was plastered with surveillance photos, taken both from a distance and up close from what seemed like hidden cameras. They were all of an older woman, a man in his twenties, and a house.

“Who are they?” Jaime asked anxiously.

“It’s my family,” Cisco said quietly. The pictures were all of his mother, Dante, and the house where they lived. “He’s targeting my family.”

“Wait,” Jaime immediately put a hand on Cisco’s shoulder. “We’ll call for backup, we’ll-”

But Cisco wasn’t listening. He tore out of Jaime’s grip, the other boy’s voice a meaningless buzzing in his ears. He opened a portal without thinking, concentrating only on his family’s house, and jumped through it before Jaime could stop him. He landed on the front lawn, crouched to the ground, then straightened as the portal closed behind him.

That was when the pain hit, and Cisco was reminded abruptly of why he didn’t open portals directly from one place to another within the same universe. A sharp stab like someone had jammed a knife through his skull made him stagger, and he put his hands to his temples and blasted a low level delta wave at himself. He’d only meant to soothe the headache, but the increased melatonin production was suddenly met with pain-induced dizziness and Cisco was on the ground before he knew what was happening.

The last thing he saw before he blacked out was a shadow passing over his mother’s house.

***

Cisco awoke to a cold rag being pressed to his forehead. He blinked his eyes open dazedly, grateful for the dim light, but at first everything was vague and out of focus.

“Hey handsome,” said Cindy’s voice from somewhere above him, “nice of you to join the party.”

Cisco sat bolt upright, then immediately groaned and fell back against the pillows behind his head. His head was throbbing, though not as badly as before. He could feel the back of a couch pressed against his left arm. He blinked his eyes open, and Cindy’s face swam into focus.

“Hold on there,” she placed a hand on his chest, “you definitely need to slow it down.”

“My family,” Cisco said urgently, “they’re-”

“Fine,” Cindy told him. “Everyone’s fine, they’re safe.”

“Cisco?” said another voice, and immediately Dante’s face appeared beside Cindy’s. “Cisco are you ok?”

“Fine,” said Cisco reflexively, then, “wait, you’re the one in danger! Where are we, where’s mom, there’s-”

“There was an incident,” Cindy cut him off, “with a giant robot. Toyman is definitely going to a higher security prison this time.”

“You mean the fight’s over?” Cisco asked incredulously. “I missed it? But how did-”

“Jaime called for backup,” Cindy explained, “and Nightwing knew the way. I’m starting to think that guy just makes it his business to know where everyone lives.”

“I wouldn’t put it past him,” Dante said in obvious annoyance.

Cisco sat up, and found that he was lying on the sofa in his mother’s living room. It seemed that most of the team had answered Jaime’s call, and were now milling around drinking from mismatched cups and nibbling on a selection of light snacks. It seemed terribly incongruous, watching all the brightly colored uniforms contrast with the soft hominess of the space, and for a moment Cisco struggled to process it.

Then, he panicked.

“Oh God,” he fell weakly back against the pillows. “Oh, my god-”

“Calm down,” Cindy instructed. “No one got hurt, the house isn’t even damaged.”

“No,” Cisco moaned, “it’s just that . . . everyone’s  _ here _ .”

“Are you embarrassed of us?” Nightwing asked, materializing out of nowhere at Dante’s elbow. Dante and Cindy both jumped, then turned to face the newcomer.

“No,” Cisco said in a small voice, “it’s just that you and my family are . . . you’re two different worlds ok? And you shouldn’t have to interact with each other. The only reason this is happening is because of me!”

“This is not your fault,” Nightwing said firmly.

“How can you say that?” Cisco demanded.

“Because it’s true,” Nightwing held his ground. “Whatever you feel like you’ve done, that’s not what caused this. Toyman caused this, no one else.”

Cisco squirmed, but knew Nightwing would accept no argument. “I’m sorry I couldn’t handle this myself.”

Nightwing smiled fondly. “I made you a promise, remember?”

At this Cindy suddenly elbowed Dante in the ribs. Dante, teeth clenched like he was in great pain, turned to Nightwing.

“Thank you,” he said with effort, “for not letting us and our house get squished.”

“That’s kinda my job,” Nightwing said, easily switching his attention to the older Ramon brother.

“You don’t get paid for it,” Dante said sourly.

“But it needs doing,” Nightwing argued.

Dante sighed and took on a resigned expression. “And I’m . . . sorry,” he said slowly. “For accusing you of keeping Cisco from us.”

“You hadn’t seen him in eight years,” Nightwing said gently. “You had no idea what was going on. I can’t blame you for being suspicious.”

“It’s just . . .” Dante ran a hand through his hair. “He’s my little brother, ok? I didn’t do a very good job protecting him when we were little and I . . . The thought of him being somewhere I can’t see or get to makes me want to peel my skin off.”

“Dante,” Cisco said softly, feeling a little bit sick.

Nightwing, however, took Dante by the arm and turned him toward one wall of the room. He pointed to where Robin was talking quietly to Wonder Girl, both of the nibbling at the snacks but seeming far more interested in each other.

“See that kid over there in the cape?” Nightwing said. “That’s  _ my _ little brother. Every day I have to send him off on missions, somewhere I can’t see or get to, that I know are dangerous. I have to trust him to take care of himself, even when all I want to do is make sure he’s ok.”

“How do you do it?” Dante asked.

“I don’t send him alone,” Nightwing told him. “I send him with a team, that I trust, because I helped train them. I know you don’t have that luxury, you don’t know these people like I do, but I hope that this-” he gestured around at the assembly of superheroes “-helps you understand just how committed we are to taking care of each other.”

Dante squirmed, like he would rather do anything than admit Nightwing was right but he couldn’t deny it. As Cisco watched he looked appraisingly around the room, sighed, then nodded. Nightwing and Cisco shared a conspiratorial smile.

Then Dane turned his attention back to Cisco with a frown. “And you,” he said in sudden agitation, making Cisco shrink back in alarm, “what were you doing passed out on the lawn? What happened? Did you overexert yourself?”

Cisco threw a guilty look at Nightwing. “I . . . didn’t listen to my teammate,” Cisco confessed. “I saw that you were going to be targets and I panicked. I was so scared I didn’t even think of calling for backup.”

“Well don’t do that,” Dante snapped, then reached out and ruffled Cisco’s hair. “Promise me you’ll stick with the team next time, ok?”

“Promise,” Cisco nodded seriously.

At that point Wally decided it was time to join the conversation and came up on Dante’s other side. “Hi!” he said excitedly. “You’re the older brother, right? I’m the guy Cisco brought back from the dead.”

Dante’s mouth fell open as he stared at Wally in nothing short of horror. Cindy giggled, and Cisco smacked himself in the face.

“Stop telling people you died!” Cisco admonished.

“Sometimes I can still hear my own voice.”

“You were trapped inside the speed force!”

“Calling out from beyond the grave.”

“You weren’t dead!”

“I was so,” Wally insisted. “I was no longer of this earth.”

“You were no longer  _ on _ this earth,” Cisco corrected.

Wally shrugged. “Same difference.”

“Something which could apply to all of us,” Cisco continued, “because we’ve all been into space.”

“Space?!” Dante interjected suddenly. “What were you doing in space?!”

“Uh . . .” Cisco tried to think of a way to put it that wouldn’t be even more alarming. “Working?”

Dante considered this for a minute, then gave Cisco a look of utmost seriousness. “Mom can never know.”

Eyes wide, Cisco nodded.

As though sensing herself spoken of Cisco’s mother emerged from the kitchen, clutching a fresh tray of snacks. Her eyes immediately went to where Cisco was lying on the couch, and quickly abandoned the tray to a side table and went to her youngest son.

“Mijo!” she cried, coming to kneel beside him but finding the place where she would have sat already occupied. Cindy quickly shuffled aside, but Cisco’s mother stared at her in something between confusion and indignation.

Cisco cleared his throat. “Mom,” he said carefully, “this is Cindy.”

Cindy, bless her, put on her best winning smile and held out a hand. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Mrs. Ramon.”

Momentarily distracted from her worry, Cisco’s mother gave Cindy a very obvious once over and then looked at Cisco. “So this is the girlfriend.”

“Yes, mom,” Cisco nodded.

“You didn’t tell me she was so pretty,” his mother said approvingly.

Cisco should have known Cindy couldn’t resist. She donned a demure expression, allowed a light blush to color her cheeks, then turned herself invisible as though suddenly shy. Cisco’s mother squeaked and dropped Cindy’s hand, and Cisco groaned. He opened his mouth to tell her to stop showing off, when he was cut off by Dante unexpectedly bursting out laughing.

Once he had finished and everyone was staring at him, Dante wiped his eyes and looked at Cisco. “Oh, I  _ like _ her.”

Cisco frowned. “Hands off, she’s not Melinda Torres.”

“Boys,” their mother remonstrated. “Don’t fight, we have guests.”

Cisco and Dante looked at each other, and suddenly neither of them could stifle a laugh.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> one more fic in this verse is coming and then i can work on my next au in my long, long list of all the ways i want to add cisco into young justice.


End file.
